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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Switch vs WiiU vs Xbox One vs PS4 (Last Update: January 12, 2017)

bonzobanana said:

You have massively over-stated the required level of performance boost and you are totally at odds with the reality of what is achieved by games in general. Including a huge range of 60fps games by both Nintendo and other publishers. With exceptionally low cpu resources the wii u has provided many rock solid 60fps games but has struggled to achieve 1080p resolutions. Many games including fps games like black ops 2 have maintained 60 fps games. I think part of the issue may be you are taking a PC perspective where games simply push more frames based on the hardware performance level rather than a game developed from the ground up to achieve a certain frame rate with given hardware where the engine will be fully optimised to work at a certain frame rate. 

However even if your figures are right and it is as high as 40% which I don't believe for a minute it is for a game designed from the ground up for 60fps. The wii u already runs games like mario kart at 60fps with a rubbish 32bit 9000 mips cpu and the Switch has a far superor 64bit quad processor of 19000 mips approx which probably can achieve 2.5x approx performance. Huge amount of headroom there. For the ps3 and 360 the 360 was also about 19000 mips in total but the older architecture gpu needed much more assistance from the cpu plus again older 32bit architecture. Again there is headroom there to achieve higher frame rates. 

I honestly don't get what your problem is the Switch has extra cpu performance, huge amount of extra memory, a much later gpu architecture with a huge amount of features that will assist both cpu and gpu performance. So your saying when DICE did Black Ops II on 360 they lost getting on half the cpu performance by going to 60fps. How can you even give a figure of 40% when the cpu performance of different systems varies enormously and is not a constant with some systems having a higher or lower ratio of cpu power compared to their gpu. The game engine itself would dictate how much extra processing is required per frame and this would never be a constant compared to the all the other logic processes going on depending on game.

Not forgetting the Maxwell architecture is based around optimised VR performance and reducing the load on the system.

 

Its hard making this point to you because you seem not to understand the basics....... I will try and be as concise as possibble. 

The issue here isn't that the switch cannot run games at 60fps, that not what we are debating. The discussion we are having is going from 30fps to 60fps.

If a game is made from the ground up to run at 60fps on the switch in in mobile mode, then of course nothing needs to be done to get itto run at 60fps in docked mode and at a higher resolution. The higher GPU clock will cover how much harder the GPU has to work to push out more pixels and the higher memory clock in that mode will also cover the bandwidth bump required for the larger frame buffer going from 720p-1080p. 

But taking a game that is designed to run at 720p/30fps in undocked mode to 1080p/60fps or even 720p/60fps in docked ode is impossible. That is because the CPU clock is locked across modes. If they are using all 1GHz of that CPU to run game logic and are running at 30fps, getting the same game logic to run at 60fps will require a CPU bump of at least 30-50% (depending on the game engine). The GPU is not the issue here, there is enough of a bump in the GPU to go from 720p@30fps to 720p@60fps but the CPU will prevent this from happenning. But not from 720p@30fps to 1080p@60fps. I am not overstating anything, you just ned to try and understand what is being said and then you will see it for yourself. I don't know how else to explain this to you.

And it seems you are having two seperate arguments simultaneously. If what you are talking about is taking the PS3/360 "like" games and running the at a higher rez and framerate? Then absolutely, the switch has enough power to do that. But thats a redundant argument cause we aren't livig in a world where the current AAA games are being made for the PS3/360 anymore. The Witcher 3, New COD, BF1, FF15, ME:A, Next GTA6, RDR2....etc are not being made for the PS3/360. So its kinda silly measuring the performance of hardware coming out in 2017 against hardware released in 2005/2006. What we should be talking about is the liklyhood of getting PS4/XB1 ports over to the Switch, not getting ports for hardware thats not even being supported anymore.

And really, you need to just drop the VR talk. You keep talking about specs like you are living in a bubble or that because its nintendo theywill do some sort of tech wizardry and get chips to do the impossible. Look at it this way, even the Base PS4... hell even the PS4pro, that are all signifactly waaay more powerful than the switch can only do passable VR. Use that as your yardstick. When you talk like that, its kinda hard to take you seriously.

And i hvae no problem with the switch, just pointing out tht what you are saying about it isn't accurate.



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Based on the UE4 settings just released, it goes against what you are saying intrinsic.

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=223844

As well as the Digital Foundary article which supports that ports moving between portable/docked are actually benefited by the CPU remaining constant.

I think what we've learned over just this week is that
1) NS technically can have ports from PS4/XBO.
- The middleware supports it and makes it relatively easy and cost-effective
- All that was technically blocking/making it costly on WiiU is gone

2) NS will be scaled as I've said numerous times in this and other threads when comparing to say XBO
- NS docked is 1/3 to 1/2 XBO overall
- NS docked will have slightly lower tech settings and a lower resolution
- NS portable will have lower tech settings and lower resolution than docked
- NS portable, due to 6" 720p screen will look and play the same / similar to docked to most people


The gap between PS360 and Wii was more significant than NS to PS4/XBO from not only a raw power scenario but also lack of support for any of the modern tech of the time. The Wii had every COD and many other games thought impossible, but once an engine was built, it was there. The same middleware used for PS4/XBO already supports NS, so expect money hungry publishers to put games there.

NS supports ALL of the same tech. ALL of the same middleware.
NS has APIs and software built by Nvidia which is top-notch and driving the rumors about it being easy to develop on, maybe easier than PS4/XBO.

I'm not saying all 3rd party games will be on NS. They won't. But we will see a much higher level of support than Wii or WiiU assuming NS launch shows consumer interest and creates a viable market.



Intrinsic said:
bonzobanana said:

You have massively over-stated the required level of performance boost and you are totally at odds with the reality of what is achieved by games in general. Including a huge range of 60fps games by both Nintendo and other publishers. With exceptionally low cpu resources the wii u has provided many rock solid 60fps games but has struggled to achieve 1080p resolutions. Many games including fps games like black ops 2 have maintained 60 fps games. I think part of the issue may be you are taking a PC perspective where games simply push more frames based on the hardware performance level rather than a game developed from the ground up to achieve a certain frame rate with given hardware where the engine will be fully optimised to work at a certain frame rate. 

However even if your figures are right and it is as high as 40% which I don't believe for a minute it is for a game designed from the ground up for 60fps. The wii u already runs games like mario kart at 60fps with a rubbish 32bit 9000 mips cpu and the Switch has a far superor 64bit quad processor of 19000 mips approx which probably can achieve 2.5x approx performance. Huge amount of headroom there. For the ps3 and 360 the 360 was also about 19000 mips in total but the older architecture gpu needed much more assistance from the cpu plus again older 32bit architecture. Again there is headroom there to achieve higher frame rates. 

I honestly don't get what your problem is the Switch has extra cpu performance, huge amount of extra memory, a much later gpu architecture with a huge amount of features that will assist both cpu and gpu performance. So your saying when DICE did Black Ops II on 360 they lost getting on half the cpu performance by going to 60fps. How can you even give a figure of 40% when the cpu performance of different systems varies enormously and is not a constant with some systems having a higher or lower ratio of cpu power compared to their gpu. The game engine itself would dictate how much extra processing is required per frame and this would never be a constant compared to the all the other logic processes going on depending on game.

Not forgetting the Maxwell architecture is based around optimised VR performance and reducing the load on the system.

 

Its hard making this point to you because you seem not to understand the basics....... I will try and be as concise as possibble. 

The issue here isn't that the switch cannot run games at 60fps, that not what we are debating. The discussion we are having is going from 30fps to 60fps.

If a game is made from the ground up to run at 60fps on the switch in in mobile mode, then of course nothing needs to be done to get itto run at 60fps in docked mode and at a higher resolution. The higher GPU clock will cover how much harder the GPU has to work to push out more pixels and the higher memory clock in that mode will also cover the bandwidth bump required for the larger frame buffer going from 720p-1080p. 

But taking a game that is designed to run at 720p/30fps in undocked mode to 1080p/60fps or even 720p/60fps in docked ode is impossible. That is because the CPU clock is locked across modes. If they are using all 1GHz of that CPU to run game logic and are running at 30fps, getting the same game logic to run at 60fps will require a CPU bump of at least 30-50% (depending on the game engine). The GPU is not the issue here, there is enough of a bump in the GPU to go from 720p@30fps to 720p@60fps but the CPU will prevent this from happenning. But not from 720p@30fps to 1080p@60fps. I am not overstating anything, you just ned to try and understand what is being said and then you will see it for yourself. I don't know how else to explain this to you.

And it seems you are having two seperate arguments simultaneously. If what you are talking about is taking the PS3/360 "like" games and running the at a higher rez and framerate? Then absolutely, the switch has enough power to do that. But thats a redundant argument cause we aren't livig in a world where the current AAA games are being made for the PS3/360 anymore. The Witcher 3, New COD, BF1, FF15, ME:A, Next GTA6, RDR2....etc are not being made for the PS3/360. So its kinda silly measuring the performance of hardware coming out in 2017 against hardware released in 2005/2006. What we should be talking about is the liklyhood of getting PS4/XB1 ports over to the Switch, not getting ports for hardware thats not even being supported anymore.

And really, you need to just drop the VR talk. You keep talking about specs like you are living in a bubble or that because its nintendo theywill do some sort of tech wizardry and get chips to do the impossible. Look at it this way, even the Base PS4... hell even the PS4pro, that are all signifactly waaay more powerful than the switch can only do passable VR. Use that as your yardstick. When you talk like that, its kinda hard to take you seriously.

And i hvae no problem with the switch, just pointing out tht what you are saying about it isn't accurate.

 

Take me seriously? You seem to be in a world of your own. No one ever said it would provide PS4 VR experiences but you seem insistant on comparing it to that. It's a convenient and higher performance version of google cardboard VR without the setup time or poor controls. 

I never said once the Switch would take ps4/xbone games and do them justice in VR. It isn't competitive in performance in that way. It will do cutdown versions of such games with poor visuals in comparison in 2D only. I don't think anyone is questioning that. What it will do is 1080p 60fps versions of existing wii u and possibly last gen games docked based on its higher gpu and cpu performance. It will do last gen games (ps3/360) as a portable at 720p 30fps and higher resolution and possibly frame rate versions when docked. For VR games on battery it will between wii and wii u performance because of the probable 70/75hz refresh rate required but if VR has docked performance then 70hz versions of last gen ps3/360 titles will be possible. Even on battery last gen versions of games will be possible with cutdown graphics. VR has to have a bare minimum of 60fps I would think and most likely 70 or 75fps but the Maxwell chipset is pretty much feature packed and designed with VR in mind.

Your whole argument seems to be based on comparing Switch with PS4/Xbone/PC and that isn't what the Switch is about. Nintendo have basically withdrawn from the home console sector and have produced a portable designed to also perform as a home console with a turbo mode so to speak and are offering a basic VR system too. You can play the same games in many different ways and in any location. 

I don't know if it will succeed or fail but I know I want one at some point. VR mario kart would be just awesome.

With a declining home console and portable sector Nintendo have done the logical thing of amalgamating both together.



superchunk said:
NS supports ALL of the same tech. ALL of the same middleware.
NS has APIs and software built by Nvidia which is top-notch and driving the rumors about it being easy to develop on, maybe easier than PS4/XBO.

I'm not saying all 3rd party games will be on NS. They won't. But we will see a much higher level of support than Wii or WiiU assuming NS launch shows consumer interest and creates a viable market.

Yes, the CPU clock remaining constant across modes benefits the NS, just not in the way you seem to be suggesting.

If the NS also downclocked its CPU for undocked mode then devs would literally have had to make two completely different engne profiles as opposed to one profile with different presets. So that makes the dev process mre straight forward. The downside to this though is that Devs will build to the maximum worst case specification. Which is the NS undocked. So the will build their games knowing they have a 1ghz CPU and around a 170GF GPU. 

When in docked mode this just means that the upclocked GP and memory goes into running the undocked game at a higher resolution and with higher GPU based assets eg. better AA, AF...etc. Which is what i think the NS was intended to do.

The NS supporting all the same tech does;t automatically means it gets all thesame games though. It just means it would be easier to port games over. But outside the tech there are still a great number of hardware limitations that could complicate that porting process. How hard a hurdle this is to overcome and how well the NS sells will determine how many ports we see. So its not just all one thing. If the NS goes onto sell around 12-15M in its first year on the market, then devs will see it as a worthy investment in putting their time and money into making those NS ports.

bonzobanana said:

1. I never said once the Switch would take ps4/xbone games and do them justice in VR. It isn't competitive in performance in that way. It will do cutdown versions of such games with poor visuals in comparison in 2D only. I don't think anyone is questioning that. What it will do is 1080p 60fps versions of existing wii u and possibly last gen games docked based on its higher gpu and cpu performance. It will do last gen games (ps3/360) as a portable at 720p 30fps and higher resolution and possibly frame rate versions when docked. For VR games on battery it will between wii and wii u performance because of the probable 70/75hz refresh rate required but if VR has docked performance then 70hz versions of last gen ps3/360 titles will be possible. Even on battery last gen versions of games will be possible with cutdown graphics. VR has to have a bare minimum of 60fps I would think and most likely 70 or 75fps but the Maxwell chipset is pretty much feature packed and designed with VR in mind.

Your whole argument seems to be based on comparing Switch with PS4/Xbone/PC and that isn't what the Switch is about. Nintendo have basically withdrawn from the home console sector and have produced a portable designed to also perform as a home console with a turbo mode so to speak and are offering a basic VR system too. You can play the same games in many different ways and in any location. 

I don't know if it will succeed or fail but I know I want one at some point. VR mario kart would be just awesome.

2. With a declining home console and portable sector Nintendo have done the logical thing of amalgamating both together.

1. If you said all you said as you said it here, i would never have bothered saying anything to you. I still do not agree with the whole VR thing, especially if you are comparing it google cardboard. But lets leave it alone, we will see hw that goes in the end.

If your whole argument is based on having better versions of 360/ps3 games, then no qualms there, but if you are talking about VR even for those kinda games, you are still very very very wrong.

2. Becasue the wiiU did so poorly and the XB1 is doing ok, doesn't mean console sales are declining. The market is changing, japans focus has shifted to mobile  but that is being made up for in larger ROW console uptake. The PS4 is currently pushing PS2 level numbers and the XB1 is at least doing as well as the 360 did. I don't know where you are getting this consoles are dying thing from. But yes, this is the best thing that nintendo could have done.



Man... only 2 weeks away to finding out much of these final details. It wasn't too much longer after WiiU was revealed that the hardware specs were confirmed. In this case, nvidia has a stake in promoting its hardware so maybe we'll get better details than previous Nintendo hardware.



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Updated OP with FCC filing.

While this doesn't help much on the raw power hardware, it does shed light on communications and battery.

1. It will have a non-removable battery. At least the test unit did and that unit is intended to be same as a production model. This is not a good thing for those that would buy different batteries. I never do and would just use my charger. But here's hoping to the upper bound rumor of 8hrs of battery life.

2. It will use the latest wifi technology. WiiU also used -n however it was limited to just the 2.4GHz spectrum as the gamepad utilized the 5GHz. NS on the other hand allows both spectrums and MIMO technology. So expect top-notch wifi connection.

3. It does not use bluetooth LE. This is really a non-issue as the bluetooth utilization is just for controllers, though LE should really be the default at this point and time. Here's more info on what LE is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth_low_energy



It appears the new Shield still uses the X1.... and it supports 4K.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/shield/shield-tv/

 



Updated price, launch and data on force feedback.



http://www.nintendo.com/switch/features/

confirmation on some details.

battery life is actually crap. 8hrs must be doing nothing. Says 3hrs while playing Zelda.
does have 32MB storage.
Joy-cons have no visble charge port... I'm guessing they actually take batteries. idk.



Crap, haven't I been keeping an eye on this thread since late November!? Time for me to do some reading up!



I'm on Twitter @DanneSandin!

Furthermore, I think VGChartz should add a "Like"-button.