*** ALERT FREE GAMES ***

From today's refresh until September29, the first two Syberia games are free to keep at Steam:

• Syberia https://store.steampowered.com/app/46500/Syberia/
• Syberia II https://store.steampowered.com/app/46510/Syberia_II/

Oh, Nvidia tried for year to get their hands on an x86 license because they knew that integrating CPUs and GPUs was the future (that's why AMD bought ATI), but Intel didn't let them. And so, in the end, and thanks to the rise of smartphones, they decided to buy ARM. "If you can't join them, compete with them".

When it comes to Nintendo, it's not that they use "proven and tested" tech, it's that they sometimes go beyond that and use parts that are almost outdated. They could have gone with a Tegra 2 SoC for the Switch but they decided to go for the older Tegra 1. And who knows what they'll decide to use for the Switch' successor. I really hope Nvidia can offer them a good Soc with the necessary hardware for DLSS (I'm not so sure about RT) and that Nintendo accepts it.

Who knows, the Nintendo of today is no longer the Nintendo of Yamauchi or Iwata, maybe the new board will be eager to accept more modern tech.

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 They would rather use outdated hardware thats cheap but add more gimmicky features than state of the art hardware that costs more with less gimmicky features.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...

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.

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). 

I already argued this point back almost 10 years ago... When the Xbox One and Playstation 4 got unveiled... That the Xbox One would hold a CPU advantage, not just because of clockrates, but because of DRAM latency between DDR3 (Xbox) and GDDR5 (PS4).

But if you are running integrated graphics and you are primarily GPU bound, than GDDR memory is definitely the way to go, even if it comes at the cost of the CPU.

Yeah. Between the Zen+ and Zen2 is a good ballpark, depending on workload of course... Clockrates hold it back from competing with low-end Zen3 though.

The hardware decompression generally just offloads that specific task, something the PC doesn't need to do anyway on the same scale.

The PCI-E slot though is a real real bummer to what could have otherwise been a fantastic cheap ITX rig.

Keep in mind that games/game engines are still built with Jaguar as the lowest common denominator in mind... Once we switch over to the 9th gen hardware completely, things might start to change and older PC's with old Quadcores+HT will start to feel far more limited than they already are.

Microsoft's GPU in the Series X is fairly large as-is, it sits between the 6700XT and 6800 GPU's in terms of functional units, it just lacks the clockrate to really push things to crazy heights to fit in a defined TDP envelope.
They did have to give up some die-space to accommodate the more capable CPU in the end... Console hardware is generally a balancing act.

Sadly AMD RDNA2 Ray Tracing is hot garbage (Speaking from experience here), so hopefully there is a revision/Pro console in a few years.

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!

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.

I just hope that their next system puts more focus on AAA support, because even some indie titles (3D based) are picking up the requirements and at times looking blurry on the Switch compared to the PC/other consoles.

If they mess up and try to keep their next system cheaper, then they'll end up facing another Wii U scenario, where 3rd parties go back to abandoning them again. Switch already feels like it's more dated and it only released back in 2017, not even a full 5 years and I already wish they had new hw (which tells me personally that they chose poorly for Switch in the first place, as no console should age that fast). 

Yea and the biggest point of comparison of what can be possible is with the Steam Deck. Like look at this gameplay leak running on the Steam Deck with no optimization:

(slightly nsfw)

https://www.reddit.com/link/ptr4dc/video/dv0vfgetv7p71/player

To me, this looks insane on a portable! Now imagine that... With Nvidia hardware... With DLSS... And console level optimization!

This is why the only shooters I still play are either pre-halo (Unreal Tournament most prominently) or Serious Sam, who stayed largely the same since it's inception.

And while I like Doom 2016, having to essentially finish off the ennemies in melee in the end is to me like needing to switch to resort to the shield gun in UT for the final kill, which is absolutely against my very concept of shooters. Without that feature, Doom 2016 would be much more enjoyable to me than it is in it's current form.