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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Switch development has access to 3 CPUs and 3GB RAM

TomaTito on 16 March 2017
maxleresistant said:
"As many would have guessed! But after the X1 news, it seems like Switch OS is using similar resources (1CPU+1GB) as the WiiU and doing it in a more efficient way. The system is snappy as hell."

It's also barebones as hell.

Don't get me wrong, I think efficiency is more important than having a pretty OS, but a lot of features are still missing.
The Switch OS is far from doing what the PS4 and One OS does.

People are going to say : "but the PS4 and Xbox One had 4 years, when they launched they were missing features"

Yes but most of those features were new features, features that weren't available on PS3/360. Here Nintendo had 4 years to look at what their competitors were doing and build the features that were the most used and demanded by players. Everything was already paved.

Where is the VC? Vocal chat? Apps? Video Streaming? Trophies?

Why does Nintendo always go out of their way to try and not meet people expectations? From a business standpoint, It kind of baffles me every time.

I understand why they delayed the internet browser though. They need to make sure people can't hack the machine through it. That's of the utmost importance for the future of the system. I know, turns out they managed to hack it anyway, but well...

Why aren't you comparing it to the WiiU as I stated in the OP?

The WiiU OS would crawl when booting up. It takes literally 5min to change the system language.

Apps and VC will come at a later time, they won't affect the OS.
Trophies could be included in My Nintendo.
Voice chat? That might be linked to the smartphones.
Things still need to be confirmed.



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gentii on 16 March 2017


switch console looks very promising

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XzIZWO1qdg



maxleresistant on 16 March 2017
TomaTito said:
maxleresistant said:
"As many would have guessed! But after the X1 news, it seems like Switch OS is using similar resources (1CPU+1GB) as the WiiU and doing it in a more efficient way. The system is snappy as hell."

It's also barebones as hell.

Don't get me wrong, I think efficiency is more important than having a pretty OS, but a lot of features are still missing.
The Switch OS is far from doing what the PS4 and One OS does.

People are going to say : "but the PS4 and Xbox One had 4 years, when they launched they were missing features"

Yes but most of those features were new features, features that weren't available on PS3/360. Here Nintendo had 4 years to look at what their competitors were doing and build the features that were the most used and demanded by players. Everything was already paved.

Where is the VC? Vocal chat? Apps? Video Streaming? Trophies?

Why does Nintendo always go out of their way to try and not meet people expectations? From a business standpoint, It kind of baffles me every time.

I understand why they delayed the internet browser though. They need to make sure people can't hack the machine through it. That's of the utmost importance for the future of the system. I know, turns out they managed to hack it anyway, but well...

Why aren't you comparing it to the WiiU as I stated in the OP?

The WiiU OS would crawl when booting up. It takes literally 5min to change the system language.

because the WiiU OS was already a shameful crapfest in 2012, and this is not 2012 anymore. 

But let's compare if you will, the WiiU OS launched with more features and more apps. The Switch though is faster and more practical to use.

So is that a big win? I'm not so sure.

Sorry but even if the Switch looks promising, and could become a good system. Right now, I think they should not have release it in that state.



maxleresistant on 16 March 2017
gentii said:


switch console looks very promising

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XzIZWO1qdg

This is X1 running at full capacity, so close to 1Tflops.

Try running the same demo at with 0.4 Tflops. And it's really not going to have the same results



Barkley on 16 March 2017

3gb of Ram, exactly why games like Witcher 3 and Elder Scrolls VI will never see a Switch release, among other things.



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Pemalite on 16 March 2017
TomaTito said:

By comparison, the Xbox One has 8 GB of RAM, where 3 GB is reserved for the operating system. The PS4 reserves about 2 GB for the OS.

Both the Xbox One and PS4 are reported to use 2 cores for the OS as well (an update last year made the 7th core available for PS4 games, but only under certain circumstances).

Comparing the three systems and their RAM use, it would looks like this:

  • Switch: 4 GB RAM – 3GB for games
  • Xbox One: 8 GB RAM – 5 GB for games
  • PS4: 8 GB RAM – 6 GB for games

Playstation 4 Ram numbers are incorrect.
Try to remain accurate if you can.

TomaTito said:

According to a new report, Switch games can use 3 out of 4 CPU cores and 3 out of 4 GB of RAM. Which means that 25% of the system resources (1 core + 1 GB of RAM) is reserved for the operating system and background tasks.

Over the weekend we spoke to a Switch indie developer, who confirmed the recent Switch hardware specs, and revealed to us who much of the system resources games can actually use. We’ll have the full interview up later this week.

The Wii U had 2 GB of DDR3 RAM, but half of that was reserved for the OS — the same amount that the Switch OS uses.

This has been known for a long time.

Jranation said:
Is this good?

It's not unexpected.

JRPGfan said:

Why?

Why dont they have full access to all 4? they have 8 cores in there right? 4big and 4small ones? why not use the small ones for the OS and other stuff?

 

Only 4 cores can be used at a time. If a game demands the faster cores, the system will use those cores instead, if the system doesn't, it reverts to the slower cores to save on power.

Running all 8-cores would simply require far to much energy.

Personally I think nintendo should have stuck with 4 slower cores rather than have a Big.Little layout.

JRPGfan said:

 Its why the PS4 has cheap memory (compaired to XB1 esram + ddr3 combo), thats still high memory bandwidth.

It uses the same type graphics cards normally do.

It does come with a couple of caveats.

GDDR5 was (At the time) more expensive than DDR3, with DDR3 now in decline, costs should be starting to change into GDDR5's favour.

Plus GDDR5 has higher latency in general than DDR3 by roughly 10-20%.

etking said:

One core and 1 GB of RAM is wasted for no reason. Why don't they use dynamic resource allocation and more efficient programming, so that the unused core and unused memory can be used for games?

You do not need a whole core for the OS and you do not need 1GB of RAM. Instead they should kill / freeze and swap out everything that is not required while gaming. Encryption, security and networking takes a small amount of CPU and memory, but not enough to reserve 25% of all system resources available. This is not an efficient design decision but it can and should be changed.

It's not wasted. That 1GB of Ram and 1 CPU core is for the OS and background tasks. And I would assume eventually... Apps.

Besides, it's fine to reserve a chunk of the system capabilities at launch when everything is still fairly fresh and new, then over time release extra resources for developers to use.

It's easier to release resources in a console at a later date than to take it away.





--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--

malistix1985 on 16 March 2017
John2290 said:
malistix1985 said:
Very slow ram, makes a big difference you can see it with the PS4 / XBox One difference, altough the Xbox has a nice memroy buffer the faster ram is one of the things that has helped the PS4 a lot.

On PS4 pro the increased speed of ram gives faster texture loading etc, very noticable in comparison movies and one can only start to imagine when the scorpio's 320GB of GDDR5X hits its going to impact games a lot to, espcially in 4k.

Now 4Gb total and 3 available is good for a handheld, but the discussion always comes back to this, its almost half the ram of the 5.5 available on PS4 / Xbox and its slower but the Switch doesn't compete with these consoles, but when you port games the ram difference will be one of the factors developers will need to do a lot of work to work around.

When you build a game from the ground up for the switch however, this is a very good amount, which is why everyone should hope the console sells well and people will take the time and effort, third parties too.

Surely you mean 32GB? 

I meen Gb/s ^_^ its gonna have 12GB it has the same memory as the 1080GTX, its very fast, even in comparison to the PS4 Pro




Twitter @CyberMalistix

TomaTito on 16 March 2017
Pemalite said:
TomaTito said:

By comparison, the Xbox One has 8 GB of RAM, where 3 GB is reserved for the operating system. The PS4 reserves about 2 GB for the OS.

Both the Xbox One and PS4 are reported to use 2 cores for the OS as well (an update last year made the 7th core available for PS4 games, but only under certain circumstances).

Comparing the three systems and their RAM use, it would looks like this:

  • Switch: 4 GB RAM – 3GB for games
  • Xbox One: 8 GB RAM – 5 GB for games
  • PS4: 8 GB RAM – 6 GB for games

Playstation 4 Ram numbers are incorrect.
Try to remain accurate if you can.

I just copy and pasted the article, those are not my words.

Can you provide me with the correct data? I'll update the OP.



@Twitter | Switch | Steam

You say tomato, I say tomato 

"¡Viva la Ñ!"
JRPGfan on 16 March 2017
TomaTito said:
Pemalite said:

Playstation 4 Ram numbers are incorrect.
Try to remain accurate if you can.

I just copy and pasted the article, those are not my words.

Can you provide me with the correct data? I'll update the OP.

I remember reading it was 4.5gb, but they could use upto 5.5gb if needed (so I think 5.5gb? is what hes saying).

Why do they need 2.5 GB for the OS?

Part of it is that continuously recording of the last 15mins of gameplay footage.

So you can make clips / videos and uploads of it.

 

Im not sure what the actual numbers are, anyways... tbh it doesnt matter OP, its just used as a compairson to the switch atm.



Turkish on 16 March 2017
gentii said:


switch console looks very promising

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XzIZWO1qdg

If you want to see how promising it looks, just look at a real comparison of a real game