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

mine on 21 March 2017
bonzobanana said:

With the 32GB storage being on a daughter board its pretty clear Nintendo had designed the Switch with regard higher capacity models, so we may see 64GB and 128GB models too and they seem to have designed the system so internal storage outperforms third party SD cards so those wanting the best performance will go with these premium Switch models. 32GB models will probably represent entry level at some point and new colours and special editions with higher capacity storage the premium end.

DigitalFoundry testet Zelda BotW load times from internal storage, cartridge and two different microSDXC cards. Internal Flash won by 10%. Disappointing was that cartridges and 80MB/s microSDXC seem to be at the same speed level.

But their test had some flaw: a theoretical faster microSDX (rated 110MB/s or so) was even slower then the 80MB/s one. Someone has to test the fastest microSDXC cards on the market which provide around 200MB/s. Would be great if those make a difference.

Or Nintendo could release the specs and we know for sure what bandwidth the external storage can provide...

 



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bonzobanana on 21 March 2017
mine said:
bonzobanana said:

With the 32GB storage being on a daughter board its pretty clear Nintendo had designed the Switch with regard higher capacity models, so we may see 64GB and 128GB models too and they seem to have designed the system so internal storage outperforms third party SD cards so those wanting the best performance will go with these premium Switch models. 32GB models will probably represent entry level at some point and new colours and special editions with higher capacity storage the premium end.

DigitalFoundry testet Zelda BotW load times from internal storage, cartridge and two different microSDXC cards. Internal Flash won by 10%. Disappointing was that cartridges and 80MB/s microSDXC seem to be at the same speed level.

But their test had some flaw: a theoretical faster microSDX (rated 110MB/s or so) was even slower then the 80MB/s one. Someone has to test the fastest microSDXC cards on the market which provide around 200MB/s. Would be great if those make a difference.

Or Nintendo could release the specs and we know for sure what bandwidth the external storage can provide...

 

You could be right but it seems like the Switch transfer speed has reached its maximum with those cards that were tested. If I was Nintendo I would make sure internal storage is faster than third party because there is a lot of additional profit in providing new sku's with extra storage built-in. If a 128GB Switch can be sold for $379 that's better than someone buying $250 Switch and a 128GB micro SD card for Nintendo's profits. They are probably looking at how Apple charge for memory on their devices. They still allow SD cards though but they nobble them slightly. We may even find that a Switch with a built in 128GB of storage is much faster loading anyway than the current 32GB model so the loading speed advantage may go well beyond 10%.



mine on 21 March 2017
bonzobanana said:
mine said:

DigitalFoundry testet Zelda BotW load times from internal storage, cartridge and two different microSDXC cards. Internal Flash won by 10%. Disappointing was that cartridges and 80MB/s microSDXC seem to be at the same speed level.

But their test had some flaw: a theoretical faster microSDX (rated 110MB/s or so) was even slower then the 80MB/s one. Someone has to test the fastest microSDXC cards on the market which provide around 200MB/s. Would be great if those make a difference.

Or Nintendo could release the specs and we know for sure what bandwidth the external storage can provide...

 

You could be right but it seems like the Switch transfer speed has reached its maximum with those cards that were tested. If I was Nintendo I would make sure internal storage is faster than third party because there is a lot of additional profit in providing new sku's with extra storage built-in. If a 128GB Switch can be sold for $379 that's better than someone buying $250 Switch and a 128GB micro SD card for Nintendo's profits. They are probably looking at how Apple charge for memory on their devices. They still allow SD cards though but they nobble them slightly. We may even find that a Switch with a built in 128GB of storage is much faster loading anyway than the current 32GB model so the loading speed advantage may go well beyond 10%.

I think the tested faster MicroSDXC card wasn't up to the specs. DF also didn't benchmark the cards with a PC. 

For Nintendo the costs of having multiple SKUs (colours x capacity) in the channels are to height. If there will be Switches with more internal storage I expect them to replace the old SKUs. 

Nintendo wouldn't be wise to restrict the external storage artifically: any internal storage configuration will not satisfy all needs. And some might need 512GB cards. I have a 128GB USB Stick attached to my Wii U which is nearly full now. I expect to need that for my Switch too – but not now. 

It would be nice if Nintendo would integrate a storage test like the Internet test. The only way for me to test the USB sticks were those "VR" movies – some sticks weren't fast enough and playpack stuttered...



Pemalite on 21 March 2017
bonzobanana said:
The original xbox has a dedicated 5.1 audio chip but I think the 360 has to process audio from its cpu so possibly another thread or partial thread used. So the Switch is using a lot more of its resources for the background operating system.

Sound Storm on the Original Xbox was a beast.

The Xbox 360 uses the CPU for Audio processing.

Despite the Xbox 360 regressing in Audio, the Xbox One took a few steps forward thankfully.

Also, the Xbox 360 was only using 32MB of Ram for the OS, which is nuts compared to the 1GB the Switch is using and 3GB the Playstation 4 and Xbox One are using.



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

TomaTito on 22 March 2017
mine said:
bonzobanana said:

You could be right but it seems like the Switch transfer speed has reached its maximum with those cards that were tested. If I was Nintendo I would make sure internal storage is faster than third party because there is a lot of additional profit in providing new sku's with extra storage built-in. If a 128GB Switch can be sold for $379 that's better than someone buying $250 Switch and a 128GB micro SD card for Nintendo's profits. They are probably looking at how Apple charge for memory on their devices. They still allow SD cards though but they nobble them slightly. We may even find that a Switch with a built in 128GB of storage is much faster loading anyway than the current 32GB model so the loading speed advantage may go well beyond 10%.

I think the tested faster MicroSDXC card wasn't up to the specs. DF also didn't benchmark the cards with a PC. 

For Nintendo the costs of having multiple SKUs (colours x capacity) in the channels are to height. If there will be Switches with more internal storage I expect them to replace the old SKUs. 

Nintendo wouldn't be wise to restrict the external storage artifically: any internal storage configuration will not satisfy all needs. And some might need 512GB cards. I have a 128GB USB Stick attached to my Wii U which is nearly full now. I expect to need that for my Switch too – but not now. 

It would be nice if Nintendo would integrate a storage test like the Internet test. The only way for me to test the USB sticks were those "VR" movies – some sticks weren't fast enough and playpack stuttered...

I already posted this in two other threads, but there is also benchmarks from SanDisk themselves

  • Game card (top left)
  • SanDisk Extreme microSD (top right)
  • SanDisk Extreme Pro microSD (bottom left)
  • Internal storage (bottom right)


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