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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Could the 'Nintendo Switch Pro' just be a new dock?

Spindel on 01 April 2019

A switch "pro" will probably still offer the same performance as current switch but with better battery time in handheld.



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StuOhQ on 01 April 2019

A big drive behind the move to a Pro and Mini setup is the fact that it's becoming cost prohibitive to use the X1 chip at this point - and they've blown through the ~20M that were stockpiled and are having to mass produce them again.

We will definitely see an updated chip with better battery life and matched performance for portable (Mini), and one that maintains current battery life, but improves performance for docked mode (Pro).



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TomaTito on 01 April 2019
Pemalite said:

In the end, this idea has been pushed around for what feels like years. Essentially... It's not going to happen, the USB port doesn't have the bandwidth necessary, it's also far to high latency.
And a dock that doesn't rely on the Switch handhelds internal capabilities is entirely redundant, you might as well sell it as a stand-alone home console that runs the current software library and be done with.

Awww the NX days: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=219591

StuOhQ said:
A big drive behind the move to a Pro and Mini setup is the fact that it's becoming cost prohibitive to use the X1 chip at this point - and they've blown through the ~20M that were stockpiled and are having to mass produce them again.

We will definitely see an updated chip with better battery life and matched performance for portable (Mini), and one that maintains current battery life, but improves performance for docked mode (Pro).

Exactly, they'll be moving to the X2: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=226632

Double the battery life on portable and double the power docked, we will call it the Switch+



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potato_hamster on 01 April 2019
siebensus4 said:
As far as I know it is technically possible that a powered dock can handle some operations in addition to the console. This has always been my favourite option for a mid-gen upgrade. I don't need a more powerful console on the go, but some third party games really need more power (or better programmers).

As long as third parties have to support the original dock and the original switch, that's not going to matter too much to third parties. In fact, the only thing Nintendo would be doing is creating yet another operating mode for the Switch, and increase the cost of development for the Switch.



Pemalite on 01 April 2019
TomaTito said:
Pemalite said:

In the end, this idea has been pushed around for what feels like years. Essentially... It's not going to happen, the USB port doesn't have the bandwidth necessary, it's also far to high latency.
And a dock that doesn't rely on the Switch handhelds internal capabilities is entirely redundant, you might as well sell it as a stand-alone home console that runs the current software library and be done with.

Awww the NX days: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=219591

Sadly the Switch's USB C port doesn't have 40Gbps of bandwidth.
We are looking at probably 10Gbps at most. Or 1.25GB/s of bandwidth. - A chunk of that is reserved for HDMI/Audio and the docks USB hub and such too.

But in saying that... USB is a high latency bus unlike say... PCI-Express.



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TomaTito on 02 April 2019
Pemalite said:
TomaTito said:

Awww the NX days: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=219591

Sadly the Switch's USB C port doesn't have 40Gbps of bandwidth.
We are looking at probably 10Gbps at most. Or 1.25GB/s of bandwidth. - A chunk of that is reserved for HDMI/Audio and the docks USB hub and such too.

But in saying that... USB is a high latency bus unlike say... PCI-Express.

Obviously, it's no Thunderbolt.

That thread was made during the NX stage full with speculations and if Nintendo would go with Thunderbolt for the SCD



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jonathanalis on 02 April 2019

Even a dock with a hardware capable of run the games, we will lose the capability of undock in the middle of the game. Nothing is faster than the direct connection of the processing units in apu.

I think the only solution is using post rendering super sampling, like Nvidia rtx boards do, using artificial intelligence for improving the resolution in real time.
I would vet it as an optional dock, but only for switch 2 in 4 or 5 years, not in a switch revision.

My bet for pro: well, they need to make a more efficient chip for a switch mini (given pokemon, AC, Luigi mansion etc are coming, they wouldn't lose the opportunity).
Given they have built this efficient chip, why not using on regular switch?
This would be the pro.