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

torok on 21 December 2016
haqqaton said:

You're right. But we should note that having support for Vulkan means that all engines out there that already support it will have a lot less modifications to run on Switch than the other way. Otherwise, developers would need to change big chuncks of code to get a simple "Hello World" from their engines. This is particularly important to indie devs like Yacht Club or Shin'en that use proprietary engines.

My point is.. having support to DirectX/OpenGL/Vulkan is far from "useless". It's a very useful addition even it's only for the beginning of development. Vulkan will probably not be the most efficient way to use the hardware but it could be good enough for a lot of games. The scarce resources that small devs have would be better spent on games than trying to accomodate their engine to the Switch new proprietary API.

Yes, for smaller devs that are not on Unreal/Unity, your point is completely valid. In these cases, it's a good feature that may guarantee some ports and that's always important to build a library.



Bet with jetforcejiminy: PS4 will pass the Wii lifetime numbers.

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torok on 21 December 2016
NATO said:
haqqaton said:

About Pixel C battery, we must note that the tablet has a bigger form factor than Switch and very, very probably a bigger battery. Besides, the tablet throttles.

What I really said about Vulkan (in this thread):

First here: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8207955

Then here: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8208201

The pixel C is *SIGNIFICANTLY* thinner than the switch, at only 7mm thick compared to the switch at 24+mm thick, so the switch should have plenty of space for a much better battery, yet it doesn't.

But it's Nintendo, are you really that surprised? They have a reputation for cheaping out, take the WiiU gamepad, it has a battery slot much bigger than the battery it ships with.. then they sell a bigger battery separately..

The Pixel C packs a 9000 mah battery. It also costed US$ 500. In the best case, Nintendo could pack a battery with 5000 mah on a 7' form factor, so they already got half the juice. 13 hours in web browsing probably translate to 6 or 7 gaming in the Pixel.

However, the screen on the Pixel is much bigger and brighter and the native resolution is much higher, so we could expect that this, combined with the underclock would provide a similar battery life to the Switch.



Bet with jetforcejiminy: PS4 will pass the Wii lifetime numbers.

The_BlackHeart__ on 21 December 2016
Nautilus said:
Cant quite understand what this means.Other than tge fact that in handheld mode it is way weaker(Which can be compensated by the lower resolution), I dont know where this puts the Switch at in terms of power.Could someone elaborate for me?

It pretty much means that its using older technology that retails at half the price, which is not a bad move since Nintendo wants to make it affordable.

The problem is that this technology in specific heats up pretty quick and this creates disparity in the performance, you will see the game in one way the first 40 minutes of gameplay and in a different way after this mark, because proper ventilation is not a luxury such a portable device can afford.

Apparently Nintendo found out about this too late into development and they realized that the only way of preventing their handheld from running out of battery and over heating too soon, its simply reducing 1/4 of the chip's power.

So imagine outdated arquitecture with over heating issues at 3/4 of the power it was intended. For raw power comparisons, if these rumors are true, the Switch is just a smaller upgrade from the WiiU, even when docked.



Alby_da_Wolf on 21 December 2016
SvennoJ said:
Alby_da_Wolf said:
Same CPU speed in both modes is quite obvious, as game logic must always run in the same mode (at most they could cut it by a few tens MHz by suspending unessential non-gaming services that they possibly chose to run in background while docked). GPU speed and so graphics level is obviously where big power saving can be achieved when in portable mode, and this too shouldn't be matter of arguments.
What can really disappoint people with sound reasons is the choice of top speed when docked.

Is it that obvious? PS4 pro has a modest boost in CPU speed. Scorpio will have a much bigger difference in cpu speed compared to xbox one. Does this mean that the only difference between undocked and docked will be resolution? More effects, physics, detail, draw distance, all require more attention from the cpu as well. Or will the game run slower while undocked.

It seems likely the undocked specs are the main target, with docked only adding a resolution boost. Yet if games are tailored to 720p regarding detail, draw distance etc, won't they look a bit sparse in 1080p? Like playing a crossplay ps vita game on ps3.

I wonder how the switch will be marketed. Home console $300, $350 deluxe with larger internal storage, like the wiiU release, with $60 games. Or will it launch as a handheld at $250 with $40 games.

If the device is mainly a portable, gameplay must not be gimped when it's undocked, this means that even undocked, viewing distance must be the same and the gaming world must be kept active within the same distance in both modes, but this doesn't prevent devs from boosting graphics detail when docked.
Obviously devs with less resources will make the undocked specs the main target also for graphics, but games with res and detail lower than what HW could allow happen also on HD consoles with just one use mode.

Pemalite said:

[...]

haqqaton said:

After seeing some OpenGL vs Vulkan comparisons and considering that Switch supports Vulkan and that Vulkan is great for ARM mobile chips like Tegra X1, I think we can be confident to say that Switch, even undocked, will be fairly better than Wii U. To be fair, they are comparing Vulkan to OpenGL|ES in the videos below but I think that the point stands.

Vulkan is irrellevent, it's not going to be some magical "Secret Sauce".
The Wii U has a low level API that is higher performance than Vulkan if a Developer wishes to build for it.
Same goes for the Xbox and Playstation platforms.

An API like Vulkan does offer better performance than higher level API's like Direct X 11 and OpenGL.

Alby_da_Wolf said:
Same CPU speed in both modes is quite obvious, as game logic must always run in the same mode (at most they could cut it by a few tens MHz by suspending unessential non-gaming services that they possibly chose to run in background while docked). GPU speed and so graphics level is obviously where big power saving can be achieved when in portable mode, and this too shouldn't be matter of arguments.
What can really disappoint people with sound reasons is the choice of top speed when docked.

The annoying part is... Nintendo could have thrown out the Big cores in the Tegra chip and just kept the slower, more power efficient cores and then used that extra TDP to throw more clock rate at the graphics chip.

They could have saved money as well due to less die-space.

About APIs, well, being able to develop for just one HW config allows console makers to go to lower level even in the dev tools and standard libraries and get higher optimisation without entering into a nightmare of countless different low level optimisations as this approach would cause on PCs, efficiency will always be higher.

About Tegra cores, indeed, underusing the power of a big chip doesn't look like the best possible design approach for a portable. Early killing of Wii U forced Ninty to take some rushed design choices, maybe...



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curl-6 on 21 December 2016
CaptainExplosion said:
I just hope Nintendo listens when people tell them to boost the Switch's specs before launch.

It's Nintendo, they go out of their way to ignore consumer feedback.



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m_csquare on 21 December 2016

So weaker than the latest iphone? You can kiss goodbye to NS darksoul port now. Thankfully pokemon will save nintendo device again



Leadified on 21 December 2016
CaptainExplosion said:
I just hope Nintendo listens when people tell them to boost the Switch's specs before launch.

Launch is only 3 months away and there were rumours back in September stated that trial production has begun, it's too late to make radical changes.



SonytendoAmiibo on 21 December 2016
Leadified said:
CaptainExplosion said:
I just hope Nintendo listens when people tell them to boost the Switch's specs before launch.

Launch is only 3 months away and there were rumours back in September stated that trial production has begun, it's too late to make radical changes.

 

Every hardware design Nintendo makes is a radical change. Shame on you.

   

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Pemalite on 21 December 2016
haqqaton said:

About Pixel C battery, we must note that the tablet has a bigger form factor than Switch and very, very probably a bigger battery. Besides, the tablet throttles.

What I really said about Vulkan (in this thread):

First here: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8207955

Then here: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8208201

The Google Pixel C also has a CPU that runs 90% faster.

The Google Pixel C also has a significantly higher resolution display that consumes more energy.
The Display is one of the largest culprits in power drainage.

Fact is, there are smartphones on the market already with a smaller form factor than the Switch and offer more performance.



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zorg1000 on 22 December 2016
Pemalite said:

Fact is, there are smartphones on the market already with a smaller form factor than the Switch and offer more performance.

Is it possible for them to play games with similar visuals & scope as Breath of the Wild without overheating or draining the battery quickly?



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