Topic: Switchmas Eve Rumors and Speculations Thread

[MagicCow64]

Given how hard-line the VR enthusiasts seem to be about tech thresholds, I sincerely, sincerely doubt Nintendo will try to turn the Switch tablet into a half-assed VR device, patent doodle be damned. The screen is 720p and thus would be half that for each eye. It would be absurdly unwieldy in a head mount.

As for what demo is getting developers excited, probably just some regular old software being fed through an "off-the-record" PR sieve.

[BranDonk Kong]

Yes you do. Anything less than 1080p is basically a no-go for VR. 720p would be unwatchable.

[Agent-X-]

Given how hard-line the VR enthusiasts seem to be about tech thresholds, I sincerely, sincerely doubt Nintendo will try to turn the Switch tablet into a half-assed VR device, patent doodle be damned. The screen is 720p and thus would be half that for each eye. It would be absurdly unwieldy in a head mount.

As for what demo is getting developers excited, probably just some regular old software being fed through an "off-the-record" PR sieve.

You're probably right... It maybe something along the lines of a very simplified porting process thanks to Nvidia.

[Evan_B]

Since you clearly know more about forward thinking business practices than I do, we can just leave it at "Nintendo patented this for an eventual hardware upgrade" because I don't see the basic 250-300 dollar Switch affordably executing on the premise. Just my opinion though.

[TheSevenYearSwitch]

I didn't think about it before, but if the VR dock is like the TV dock, then the Switch would broadcast in 1080p. The question then is the screen capable of 1080p and only does 720p in portable mode to save on battery life?

[ThePerm]

[Agent-X-]

Since you clearly know more about forward thinking business practices than I do, we can just leave it at "Nintendo patented this for an eventual hardware upgrade" because I don't see the basic 250-300 dollar Switch affordably executing on the premise. Just my opinion though.

Nah, you're probably right. The experience wouldn't be very good without some additional hardware. I was simply getting my hopes up, but after reading through the patent and looking at some of the lower end VR on the market I realized it's either a) not up to Nintendo's standards or, b) like you said, tacked on. No thank you.

[Evan_B]

No no, I think we both have valid points. I'm just a pessimist.

[KeyBilly]

[ShyGuy]

Uh oh, two numbers are low. Time for the people who were never going to buy the Switch anyway to complain about Nintendo. LETS BURN THIS MOTHER DOWN.

[Ian Sane]

Ultimately when it comes to specs the opinions that matter to me are those of the developers.  If they don't feel they can port their games or not do so without major compromises then low specs are a problem.  With the Wii and Wii U I never found the games ugly, it just sucked that damn near any decent game not made by Nintendo was not on those platforms.

[Stogi]

I agree with Ian to a point and it gives me a certain level of calm that both Bethesda and From Software are in line to support system.

Where I disagree is how popular the Switch is with consumers as no one will support it even superficially without raw sale data. And in that way, it's a catch 22.

If these specs are true, launch and launch window just became incredibly important.

[ThePerm]

NVIDIA "Nintendo Switch is powered by the performance of the custom Tegra processor. The high-efficiency scalable processor includes an NVIDIA GPU based on the same architecture as the world’s top-performing GeForce gaming graphics cards.


We know it's a custom chip. For all we know nVidia calls it internally Paxwell. I would imagine early dev kits would just have maxwell processors.

[Stogi]

While you may be right, I think it's in our best interests to think the worst and hope for the best.

[Spak-Spang]

Yes, I imagine that this chip is somewhere in-between Maxwell and Pascal.  And I am sure that the original development kits had Maxwell Chips.  The question is what advancements did they make with the custom chip?  Did Nintendo decide to focus on energy saving or power...or both?  Personally, I don't care...last generation's graphics were good enough for me.  The PS4, Xbox 1 generation is more graphical power than I personally need for games...and honestly it is getting to the level that any better will be cost prohibiting to developers. 

So if the Switch can do similar graphics to PS4 and Xbox 1 and developers say it is easy enough to port games over to then I am happy.

[BranDonk Kong]

If it has an X1 chip, simply put, it cannot match the PS4 or Xbox One, or even come close. X1 is a very powerful mobile chip, more powerful than the Wii U, no doubt, but it is nowhere near the level of the current generation. However, the hope to still grasp on to, is where Nvidia said, "Nintendo Switch is powered by the performance of the custom Tegra processor. The high-efficiency scalable processor includes an NVIDIA GPU based on the same architecture as the world’s top-performing GeForce gaming graphics cards." The world's top performing GeForce gaming graphics cards, at the time of that press release (blog post), were the GTX 1070, etc. which are Pascal cards. So here's for holding out hope that the X1 was simply in development kits, and something newer than the X1 is what's in the actual hardware. It seems extremely unlikely though, at this point. But 1 GHz CPU, 4 GB RAM, 750 MHz GPU (300 MHz for "undocked" mode) is not sounding too promising. Sure, if we can get some games that are on par with beautiful Wii U games like Mario Kart 8 (which only runs at 720p, mind you), then that's great. And also, there is no excuse for the Switch to not support 4K video streaming services (right out of the box), because the Nvidia Shield Android TV does this already (and 4K gaming, but lets not even think about that now). Pretty disappointing that the CPU is clocked so low though. The Tegra X1 in the Shield (and Pixel C) runs at 1.9 GHz.

[Agent-X-]

I've got news. Eurogamer believes they've nailed down the exact clock speeds of the Switch CPU and GPU. It sounds like a stock X1 with halved CPU and much-downclocked GPU. Anomalies appears to be the only way to describe Nintendo's preferred specifications.

Eurogamer article

Regardless, behind the scenes, sources inform us that Nintendo continued to brief developers with a spec that is uncannily similar to this Twitter leak that actually surfaced before the official reveal - and in crucial areas, it's a match for a stock Tegra X1.

There are some anomalies and inconsistencies there that raise alarm bells though. Tegra X1 is a fully-featured HDMI 2.0 capable processor, so why is video output hobbled to HDMI 1.4 specs? What's the point of a 4K, 30Hz output? The X1 also has 16 ROPs, so why is pixel fill-rate mysteriously running at only 90 per cent capacity - the 14.4 pixels/cycle should be 16 were this a standard Tegra X1. Nvidia's chip also has four ARM Cortex A53s in combination with the more powerful A57s - so why aren't they on the spec too? (In fairness, the A53s didn't actually see much utilisation based on Tegra X1 benchmarks).

...

Where Switch remains consistent is in CPU power - the cores run at 1020MHz regardless of whether the machine is docked or undocked. This ensures that running game logic won't be compromised while gaming on the go: the game simulation itself will remain entirely consistent. The machine's embedded memory controller runs at 1600MHz while docked (on par with a standard Tegra X1), but the default power mode undocked sees this drop to 1331MHz. However, developers can opt to retain full memory bandwidth in their titles should they choose to do so.

As things stand, CPU clocks are halved compared to the standard Tegra X1, but it's the GPU aspect of the equation that will prove more controversial. Even while docked, Switch doesn't run at Tegra X1's full potential. Clock-speeds are locked here at 768MHz, considerably lower than the 1GHz found in Shield Android TV, but the big surprise from our perspective was the extent to which Nintendo has down-clocked the GPU to hit its thermal and battery life targets. That's not a typo: it really is 307.2MHz - meaning that in portable mode, Switch runs at exactly40 per cent of the clock-speed of the fully docked device. And yes, the table below does indeed confirm that developers can choose to hobble Switch performance when plugged into match the handheld profile should they so choose.

There it is. It is what it is. I think we all know this is the Nintendo way.

[Lemonade]

I find it very hard to care about hardware specifications like this.
All that matters is that devs can easily port their games over.

[Agent-X-]

I find it very hard to care about hardware specifications like this.
All that matters is that devs can easily port their games over.

Sure. Devs can easily port their games over. Bubble pop. Fappy bird. Casino Slots. Mad Rabbids Endless Mad Dash Lite Mobile. Some games from a few years ago. I don't see why modern Madden games and other sports games wouldn't get ported. Pretty much everything getting ported to PS3/X360 should appear on the Switch.

[Evan_B]

I'm a pessimistic guy, but until devs choose not to support the device because of these specs, I don't give two shits about the storm that is about to be unleashed by gamers thinking they know something about specs, clock speeds, and processors.

In fact, I continue to refuse to care about the Switch until I see a launch lineup.

[Stogi]

Wait...This is based off of Venturebeats article? Isn't one of the sources debunked by Perm's video, where the "devkit" the guy had was a toaster?

[Enner]

With Eurogamer, I assume that they have sources separate from Venturebeat's. Maybe. Can't be 100% sure since this is all hush-hush.

The Nintendo Switch is taking the expected route of being a super handheld that you can dock to display on a TV. I'm okay with that. I don't think many big western devs will be okay with that in the long run. I hope that Japanese devs will be okay with it.

[Agent-X-]

I'm with you, Enner. It's looking like a super handheld. My inner fanboy wants to throw a tantrum and rage quit Nintendo, but then I realize I'm totally getting that Pokemon Stars game for Switch, and I'm all in on this for jRPGs and Nintendo's traditional offerings. The ability to play handheld games on a TV is appealing.


I want... so badly... to rage quit. I'm tempted to buy a PS4 Pro just to make a point.

[ThePerm]

Nintendo custom chips tend to have larger caches, greater bandwidth size, some efficiency modifications, and higher clock speeds than the chips they are based off of. Sometimes, like with Wii U they multiply the cores. Ouya, was actually more powerful than portable Tegra 3 chips because once plugged into a wall the need for energy efficiency was lower, and it could draw more power for performance gains.

Also, that Eurogamer article is based off of Nothing. Unless I see a spec sheet on either Nintendo or NVidia's website, or I see a breakdown of the console after the release than no specs are confirmed. Also, it makes the claim that it might be weaker than the Shield? Why would Nintendo go for that? Unless the go for a $150 price. The Shield currently costs $200, if Nintendo wanted they could just put their logo on a shield and that would be that.

Nintendo set up the Switch so it would have wild rampant speculation, and in this click bait world that means money. I talked to one of the Venturebeat/Gamerbeat guys. They have no idea what they are doing. We have a cottage industry of Switch speculation. These are not real journalists.

[NWR_insanolord]

The fact that Bethesda is onboard with Switch, despite doing little to nothing on Nintendo platforms in the past, is enough to make me not worry about exact specs. Nintendo's clearly doing something right with the system if they've got all the developers listed signed on and saying positive things about it.