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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - What elements of next gen could the Switch's successor implement?

Soundwave on 13 June 2020
Wman1996 said:
I think 4K resolution (docked mode) for certain games and video streaming is the best we can hope for. Ray-tracing, 3D Audio, and the really complex AI possibilities are almost completely out of the question if Nintendo wants to balance battery power, cooling, and pricing.
Basically think of a PS4 Pro. That's about the best I can see Switch 2 performing docked, maybe slightly better or worse. It won't be as capable as the Xbox One X, and nowhere near the level of the Xbox Series X and PS5.
As for the controller, it doesn't need triggers on the level of the DualSense. But how about analog triggers again (absent since GameCube), a headphone jack, and speaker/mic.

4 teraflop-ish performance docked + better CPU (ARM A78 8-core likely) + more modern Ampere based architecture + DLSS 3.0 = a chip that will perform way above a PS4 Pro. 

A PS4 Pro has to render at 1800p-full 4K resolution ... a Switch 2 could render as low as 640x360 portable and merely 540p docked and be able to get a nice image quality thanks to DLSS. 

If Switch 2 has the raw teraflop performance in the 3-4 teraflop range (docked) it will punch several times higher than that. 



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Soundwave on 13 June 2020
Chicho said:
TheMisterManGuy said:



Another thing about next gen is loading times. For a cartridge based system, load times on Switch can be surprisingly long, painfully long depending on the game. Flash-based memory may be somewhat quicker and more reliable than HDDs, but the insane speeds of SSDs trounce it. So the challenge is finding a way to keep up with the load speeds of SSDs, without actually using an SSD (I mean seriously, where are you going to put it?). Some custom hardware to help speed up loading times could be an answer, along with a faster CPU. But that depends on if its going to make the console a lot more expensive.

I'm pretty sure they could fit one of this if they wanted. mSATA or M2 SSD

Apple's iPhones having been shipping with NVMe high speed storage for almost 5 years already, that's basically the same speed as the XBSX. Android phones lean more towards UFS, but UFS 3.0 is as fast as NVMe as well, with UFS 4.0 coming in 2022 which will be ever faster (4.8 GB/sec). 

Last edited by Soundwave - on 13 June 2020

Leynos on 13 June 2020

Nintendo cares deeply about lighting. They have ever since they went 3D. I can see them wanting even if limited some sort of Ray Tracing implemented as Nintendo will use it in a dungeon for Zelda and some levels in Mario. They love doing stuff like that.



Bite my shiny metal cockpit!

Jizz_Beard_thePirate on 13 June 2020

DLSS and a switchable dock



                  

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JRPGfan on 13 June 2020
Wman1996 said:
I think 4K resolution (docked mode) for certain games and video streaming is the best we can hope for. Ray-tracing, 3D Audio, and the really complex AI possibilities are almost completely out of the question if Nintendo wants to balance battery power, cooling, and pricing.

Basically think of a PS4 Pro. That's about the best I can see Switch 2 performing docked, maybe slightly better or worse. It won't be as capable as the Xbox One X, and nowhere near the level of the Xbox Series X and PS5.
As for the controller, it doesn't need triggers on the level of the DualSense. But how about analog triggers again (absent since GameCube), a headphone jack, and speaker/mic.

I dont think its reasonable to expect a Switch 2 to be close to a PS4pro (straight 1440-1800p, and a few 2160p games).
Its too power hungry to get down to 25wattage range of the Switch. 

I could see maybe 1080p + DLSS to upscale to 1800p-2160p (4k) in certain games.
That might be possible with a newer switch when docked.

Ray-tracing is extremely demanding for what visual improvements it brings.
So its probably not something you want to focus on, with a system that is already constrained.
Ei. its wastefull (for a smaller system), so unlikely to be used.




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Soundwave on 13 June 2020
JRPGfan said:
Wman1996 said:
I think 4K resolution (docked mode) for certain games and video streaming is the best we can hope for. Ray-tracing, 3D Audio, and the really complex AI possibilities are almost completely out of the question if Nintendo wants to balance battery power, cooling, and pricing.

Basically think of a PS4 Pro. That's about the best I can see Switch 2 performing docked, maybe slightly better or worse. It won't be as capable as the Xbox One X, and nowhere near the level of the Xbox Series X and PS5.
As for the controller, it doesn't need triggers on the level of the DualSense. But how about analog triggers again (absent since GameCube), a headphone jack, and speaker/mic.

I dont think its reasonable to expect a Switch 2 to be close to a PS4pro (straight 1440-1800p, and a few 2160p games).
Its too power hungry to get down to 25wattage range of the Switch. 

I could see maybe 1080p + DLSS to upscale to 1800p-2160p (4k) in certain games.
That might be possible with a newer switch when docked.

Ray-tracing is extremely demanding for what visual improvements it brings.
So its probably not something you want to focus on, with a system that is already constrained.
Ei. its wastefull (for a smaller system), so unlikely to be used.

DLSS can upscale to 1440p from just 576p resolution just fine, rendering at 1080p even is a waste. 

For a Switch 2 to not be even PS4 Pro level with DLSS means that the Switch 2 is less powerful than the current Switch is relative to the PS4/XB1. 

The current Switch only runs at 11 watts ... it can run games like Witcher 3 that require what? 100+ watts? 

25 watt Switch 2 would be a beast, shit a 25 watt version of the current Switch (dual Tegra Mariko processors I guess?) would run pretty much any PS4 game without much fuss. 



Agente42 on 13 June 2020
Leynos said:
Nintendo cares deeply about lighting. They have ever since they went 3D. I can see them wanting even if limited some sort of Ray Tracing implemented as Nintendo will use it in a dungeon for Zelda and some levels in Mario. They love doing stuff like that.

HDR, better motion control, 1080 undocked, better touch,fast cartridges 128 GB max



Fight-the-Streets on 13 June 2020

What I don't like about the current and next gen is that development costs for games have become too high and require too big teams to make them. Up to the Nintendo DS/PSP generation it was affordable for the 3rd parties to have dedicated teams for these handhelds. It was great to see them having their own quality games and their own quality versions of beloved IP's. Nowadays, however, it is sad too see that for even the mega successful Nintendo Switch, the 3rd party studios only make some ports but have no dedicated teams to make unique games for that platform. Even if the the graphical discrepancy between Switch/Switch 2 is very big in comparison to PS5/Xbox Series X, the Switch/Switch 2 would remain a very attractive console if it would get unique quality 3rd party support from dedicated Switch/Switch 2 teams. (And in return these unique versions still could come out in 4k to PS5/Xbox Series X/PC - it's a win-win situation).



Soundwave on 13 June 2020
Fight-the-Streets said:
What I don't like about the current and next gen is that development costs for games have become too high and require too big teams to make them. Up to the Nintendo DS/PSP generation it was affordable for the 3rd parties to have dedicated teams for these handhelds. It was great to see them having their own quality games and their own quality versions of beloved IP's. Nowadays, however, it is sad too see that for even the mega successful Nintendo Switch, the 3rd party studios only make some ports but have no dedicated teams to make unique games for that platform. Even if the the graphical discrepancy between Switch/Switch 2 is very big in comparison to PS5/Xbox Series X, the Switch/Switch 2 would remain a very attractive console if it would get unique quality 3rd party support from dedicated Switch/Switch 2 teams. (And in return these unique versions still could come out in 4k to PS5/Xbox Series X/PC - it's a win-win situation).

Think the days of that "mid-tier game specifically made for one lower end hardware" are kind of over (the Wii used to get those). 

There's very few of those on the current Switch, like Octopath Traveller and Bravely Default being two of them but even companies like Capcom have given up on doing that (the Wii used to get specific Resident Evil games for example, not this gen for Switch).

The Switch honestly is not very far off from being able to run XBox One/PS4 titles reasonably comfortably. If it could actually run at max clock (500 GFLOP docked) and get a 50% boost undocked ... likely most/all PS4/XB1 games are doable. The other thing Switch 2 is likely to benefit from is increasing storage size ... in a few years 64GB, 128GB carts will be affordable in the way 16GB and 32GB are today. 



Pemalite on 13 June 2020
TheMisterManGuy said:


Another thing about next gen is loading times. For a cartridge based system, load times on Switch can be surprisingly long, painfully long depending on the game.

Doesn't help that the Switch's ROM cart is actually slower than the Nintendo 64's.

TheMisterManGuy said:


 Flash-based memory may be somewhat quicker and more reliable than HDDs, but the insane speeds of SSDs trounce it.

SSD's are flashed based memory.

TheMisterManGuy said:


So the challenge is finding a way to keep up with the load speeds of SSDs, without actually using an SSD (I mean seriously, where are you going to put it?). Some custom hardware to help speed up loading times could be an answer, along with a faster CPU. But that depends on if its going to make the console a lot more expensive.

Just like RAM, you have two options.

Faster memory chips or more memory chips in order to leverage memory transaction parallelism.

The Switch is also CPU limited which is why the CPU boost-mode can assist in reducing load times rather significantly, loading isn't always about the storage side of the equation.

BlackBeauty said:
Nintendo will be the only console maker to have DLSS. They already won the graphics war.

In terms of “gimmicks”, I suspect something AR related would make a return.

You have Radeon image sharpening.
In the Xbox's regard, they support DirectML which is the Direct X variant of DLSS, I expect Vulkan/OpenGL to roll out a similar feature at some point, enabling it on the Playstation.

So they have similar capabilities.





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