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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Digital Foundry: Nintendo Switch CPU and GPU clock speeds revealed

Wait, another thing. The BotW gameplay ran at at least 30fps with no frame rate drops while undocked. (Gamexplain)

Even with more modern tech, I don't see how that's possible if it's weaker than Wii U when undocked like what is being speculated.



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spemanig said:
Ljink96 said:

3DS isn't anywhere near as powerful as any console on the market right now but it's still the best selling device. It's not about the power you have, it's what you do with it and what games you can make with it. Switch isn't a home console, it's not really a handheld but it's more of a handheld than it is a home console. So I think Nintendo is shooting for portability with games that look far better than 3DS, Vita, PS3 and 360 and Wii U (maybe as good as Xbox One), that can also double as console games

Handhelds are a different market. It's only competition was the Vita. Switch is not "more of a handheld" and, like it or not, is competing with PS4/XBO. That's how it's being marketed, that's likely how its software will be priced, and that's how the mass market are going to make their purchasing decisions with regards to it.

Going by rumors it's going to be $250, which is what the Vita and 3DS retailed at. I didn't bring up the other consoles because it was their respective competiton or not, I brought it up because Switch will be more powerful than all the devices listed, which is very appealing for the rumored price.

My entire point about the switch is, it's not a deathmatch with PS4 or Xbox One or Scorpio or Pro. Nintendo's simply trying to bridge the gap between their handheld and console markets. Which means, there won't be a stand alone handheld or a standalone console, so naturally when 3DS is discontinued, and Pokemon Stars or Pokemon Red Blue 2, Fire Emblem Switch, etc. come out, they won't be on the 3DS. They'll only be available on the Switch and that's where the power of the switch and its shared library come into play. People don't realize that Nintendo's handheld market, although slowly declining, is nothing to sneeze at. 61 million units is huge for a "Dying" breed. 

But not only will Switch inherit the handheld lineup, it'll have the console specific games as well. So I don't think it's so black and white as you portray it as. There are users who didn't buy a PS4 or Xbox One and don't care frankly, who own a 3DS. Once the 3DS no longer recieves support, if the customer was satisfied with the last 6-7 years of 3DS, they'll most likely buy the Switch because again, the software has moved. So you have that market that Switch is competing for. Then you have the market who does see Switch as a competitor to PS4 and Xbox One because they are aware or are interested in PS and XB and want to see what Nintendo has to offer. That's the market you're referring to and it's much smaller than the first one I've mentioned. 

Switch's success will bank mostly on the portable franchises that will jump ship from 3DS onto Switch. And those consumers who enjoyed 3DS will follow the software that you can't get on PS4, Xbox One, or 3DS. If Switch doesn't get support from games like Red Dead 2, Call of Duty, etc. (which have always sold poorly on Nintendo consoles), it isn't the end of the world. 



I don't care what Nintendo says or how they market this. The Switch is a dockable handheld console to me. While I love the concept I'm still super happy with my Wii U. I will be elated if some of the Switch library is released on the Wii U as well but I don't think any Wii U owner is holding their breath beyond the new Zelda in this regard.

On topic, it makes sense to dial it down for saving energy while in handheld mode. But when it's docked it should have higher performance. Again, to me, this spells dockable handheld console.





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curl-6 said:
Goodnightmoon said:

It look like is gonna be around x3 the power of wiiu so your expectations may be right in the low end.

In the dock, sure, but in all likelihood, the only boost it get from docking in most games is resolution and, in some GPU-bound games, a more stable framerate.

Lighting, shading, textures, effects, geometry, etc, will all still be in the Wii U's ballpark.

Why? On my PC I can downgrade most of those things, why can't the devs put a lower level on some/all of those while undocked?



spemanig said:
Wait, another thing. The BotW gameplay ran at at least 30fps with no frame rate drops while undocked. (Gamexplain)

Even with more modern tech, I don't see how that's possible if it's weaker than Wii U when undocked like what is being speculated.

True... maybe the info they have is about the first dev kit? I don't know, but hopefully it's at least 300gflops+ on portable mode. 

I remember when most of us were worried about it being a bit weaker than XOne, but now even that would make us extremely happy. It's amazing how Nintendo manages to "surprise" and "shock" us these days...



Bet with Teeqoz for 2 weeks of avatar and sig control that Super Mario Odyssey would ship more than 7m on its first 2 months. The game shipped 9.07m, so I won

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That's pretty disappointing. I wasn't expecting full XBO performance, but I was hoping for a more modern chip. On top of that, they're actually gimping this old chip, too? This thing better have great battery life and price...



spemanig said:
Wait, another thing. The BotW gameplay ran at at least 30fps with no frame rate drops while undocked. (Gamexplain)

Even with more modern tech, I don't see how that's possible if it's weaker than Wii U when undocked like what is being speculated.

But who is saying that? I think that's only a conclusion people has looking af flops alone, but that's not a good measure, xbx360 is supossed to have like 230Gflops or so while WiiU has 176, yet Wiiu is the more powerful one, also I have heard several times nvidia flops are supposed to be more efficient than AMD so I don't really know if they can be compared so easily. 



Ljink96 said:
spemanig said:

Handhelds are a different market. It's only competition was the Vita. Switch is not "more of a handheld" and, like it or not, is competing with PS4/XBO. That's how it's being marketed, that's likely how its software will be priced, and that's how the mass market are going to make their purchasing decisions with regards to it.

Going by rumors it's going to be $250, which is what the Vita and 3DS retailed at. I didn't bring up the other consoles because it was their respective competiton or not, I brought it up because Switch will be more powerful than all the devices listed, which is very appealing for the rumored price.

My entire point about the switch is, it's not a deathmatch with PS4 or Xbox One or Scorpio or Pro. Nintendo's simply trying to bridge the gap between their handheld and console markets. Which means, there won't be a stand alone handheld or a standalone console, so naturally when 3DS is discontinued, and Pokemon Stars or Pokemon Red Blue 2, Fire Emblem Switch, etc. come out, they won't be on the 3DS. They'll only be available on the Switch and that's where the power of the switch and its shared library come into play. People don't realize that Nintendo's handheld market, although slowly declining, is nothing to sneeze at. 61 million units is huge for a "Dying" breed. 

But not only will Switch inherit the handheld lineup, it'll have the console specific games as well. So I don't think it's so black and white as you portray it as. There are users who didn't buy a PS4 or Xbox One and don't care frankly, who own a 3DS. Once the 3DS no longer recieves support, if the customer was satisfied with the last 6-7 years of 3DS, they'll most likely buy the Switch because again, the software has moved. So you have that market that Switch is competing for. Then you have the market who does see Switch as a competitor to PS4 and Xbox One because they are aware or are interested in PS and XB and want to see what Nintendo has to offer. That's the market you're referring to and it's much smaller than the first one I've mentioned. 

Switch's success will bank mostly on the portable franchises that will jump ship from 3DS onto Switch. And those consumers who enjoyed 3DS will follow the software that you can't get on PS4, Xbox One, or 3DS. If Switch doesn't get support from games like Red Dead 2, Call of Duty, etc. (which have always sold poorly on Nintendo consoles), it isn't the end of the world. 

3DS and Vita aren't relevant to Switch buyers. PS4 and XBO are. It doesn't matter if Switch is 100x more powerful than a 3DS. It may as well not exist to them.

They are not trying to bridge anything. They are trying to unify their software platforms. That's different. Of course they are going to inherit some of their handheld audience because of games like Pokemon, but that's not enough. 3DS was only competing with Vita. Switch will be competing against PS4 and XBO. It's a completely different battle field, even with Pokemon. 61m people bought 3DS because the alternative was Vita. The alternative to Switch is PS4 and XBO. I can not be anymore clear. Nothing is black and white, but there are not many shades to this.

The Switch will absolutely die in the West if it banks mostly on handheld-exclusice franchises. The west doesn't care about handheld franchises. They care about home console franchises. No one in the mass market is hoping to buy the Switch for Persona Q or Zero Escape. They want it to but big budget, AAA, console quality games like Skyrim and NBA 2K. If that's not what's coming to the Switch, it will crash hard. That's how it was marketed, and that's why that video got 22m views on Youtube. Because it's being marketed at people who want a home console software experience.



LipeJJ said:
spemanig said:
Wait, another thing. The BotW gameplay ran at at least 30fps with no frame rate drops while undocked. (Gamexplain)

Even with more modern tech, I don't see how that's possible if it's weaker than Wii U when undocked like what is being speculated.

True... maybe the info they have is about the first dev kit? I don't know, but hopefully it's at least 300gflops+ on portable mode. 

I remember when most of us were worried about it being a bit weaker than XOne, but now even that would make us extremely happy. It's amazing how Nintendo manages to "surprise" and "shock" us these days...

I'm thinking that the assumption of 2 SMs is wrong, and that it's 3 or 4 SMs.

I always thought it would be weaker than XBO and I always thought that would be fine. I didn't think it would be as weak as people are assuming, though.



Goodnightmoon said:
curl-6 said:

In the dock, sure, but in all likelihood, the only boost it get from docking in most games is resolution and, in some GPU-bound games, a more stable framerate.

Lighting, shading, textures, effects, geometry, etc, will all still be in the Wii U's ballpark.

Why? On my PC I can downgrade most of those things, why can't the devs put a lower level on some/all of those while undocked?

They can, but it means more work for developers, so I think it's more likely most will focus on simply boosting resolution and maybe stabilizing framerate when playing on a TV. 

A x2.5 boost will take you from 720p to 1080p, but that doesn't leave much juice left for other improvements.