Nintendo Switch

[Stanley]

9 minutes ago, deKay said:

 

...not because it is portable. Am I not being clear enough here?

Because it's portable. You're being clear you're just wrong. No one has tried to argue that it's not possible to make a portable with twin analogue sticks. The Vita is proof of that. 

 

The 3DS was brought to market with multiple flaws and compromises to fit its design brief. We'll just have to agree to disagree and maybe just stick to talking about NX from now on, which should, and most likely will, be designed from the ground up with twin analogue sticks.

[Not Thread Owner]

28 minutes ago, Stanley said:

Because it's portable. You're being clear you're just wrong. No one has tried to argue that it's not possible to make a portable with twin analogue sticks. The Vita is proof of that. 

 

The 3DS was brought to market with multiple flaws and compromises to fit its design brief. We'll just have to agree to disagree and maybe just stick to talking about NX from now on, which should, and most likely will, be designed from the ground up with twin analogue sticks.

 

I'm not disagreeing with that. The discussion was that it was compromised (by not having twin sticks) because it was portable, which is patently bullshit.

[Stanley]

No one presented their argument like that and you know it. 

[robdood]

fucking hell guys.  two pages is long enough to have this 'debate'.  Unless you're all having fun, can we drop it now, please?

[Stanley]

Sorry 

[wretcherd]

To sum up, we hope it'll be good and not have rubbish bits.

[Not Thread Owner]

7 hours ago, dood said:

fucking hell guys.  two pages is long enough to have this 'debate'.  Unless you're all having fun, can we drop it now, please?

 

And talk about what? We still know nothing about the NX.

[Mr Cochese]

We know that the sky is falling.

[mushashi]

On 06/08/2016 at 22:31, APM said:

Anyway, is the Tegra a full SoC? If so, what's the impact of having an extra GPU in the base unit to help out the visuals for the TV? Let's face it, there's no way this is going to do less than 1080p native on the TV. Whether games render at that is probably unlikely, but it'd be suicide to not be at least on par with their previous console.

 

The term System on a Chip inherently means you get all the necessary bits to run something. I highly, highly doubt Nintendo are going to be coming up with an expensive and complicated system to boost the power by slapping in effectively a Nvidia SHIELD TV in the base unit, unless they want to charge an extra $100+ for it.

 

As I said, the Tegra X1 is already native 4K capable output, but none of the games Nvidia have paid to have ported manage to render at anything more than 1080p with last gen quality visuals so output resolution is a red herring in reality. The PS3 was doing 1080p native rendering at launch for a few games, that's how meaningless rendering resolution is as a metric of graphics quality, as those games look ancient graphically compared to even 720p Xbox One games.

 

We know Nintendo don't care about graphics performance, Iwata was saying graphics were good enough ages ago. If a fullfat Tegra X1 is noticeably more powerful than the Wii U, then a downclocked Pascal-based one will have no problems providing a similar or somewhat upgraded variant of that level of experience. It'll certainly be a massive leap over the 3DS.

[squirtle]

So, are you saying that the native resolution for when the machine is portable and when the machine is docked will be the same? I know resolution isn't a measure of the quality of the visuals, but this machine will get eaten alive if the native resolution it outputs when docked is not 1080p. The games may render at 720p, much like the Wii U, but the machine will have to be able to natively render at that resolution when docked. From what I can grasp from what you're saying is that you don't think it'll be 1080p on the go ergo, it won't be 1080p when docked. Or have I misunderstood what you're getting at?

[Petrousgyre]

21 minutes ago, APM said:

 this machine will get eaten alive if the native resolution it outputs when docked is not 1080p.

 

Will it? Nintendo have never been at the forefront of raw graphics power - given a current gen console like the Xbone rarely troubles full 1080p output it's unlikely a portable console from Nintendo is going to be mauled by its prospective audience for not always managing 1080p.

[squirtle]

It will do if the machine doesn't offer native 1080p for the home part of the machine; you know, the bit hooked up to your TV. I know they use withered technology, but at least their consoles have seen parity or an increase in resolution as they've gone on. To take a step back to a system that only renders at 720p natively on your home TV... That would be very bad for them in the press, I feel. Which is why I was asking if their would be something extra in the base unit to enable it to do that whilst still keeping the on the go part of the machine fairly modest.

[Super Craig]

I think they'll get eaten alive by the same people who expect Neo/Scorpio-level performance.

[mushashi]

30 minutes ago, APM said:

So, are you saying that the native resolution for when the machine is portable and when the machine is docked will be the same? I know resolution isn't a measure of the quality of the visuals, but this machine will get eaten alive if the native resolution it outputs when docked is not 1080p. The games may render at 720p, much like the Wii U, but the machine will have to be able to natively render at that resolution when docked. From what I can grasp from what you're saying is that you don't think it'll be 1080p on the go ergo, it won't be 1080p when docked. Or have I misunderstood what you're getting at?

 

I'm sure they can output at 1080p or even 4K when docked as the X1 chip is capable of both, but I don't think this means much for the internal rendering resolution of games themselves. The Xbox One S is capable of 4K output, so it'll just hardware upscale the internally rendered (sub)1080p rendered game to whatever display resolution the TV supports. The output and internal rendering resolution are two separate things.

 

So yes, the question is really will the internal rendering resolution be bumped when docked I suppose as upscaling something like a 540p image to a massive TV ain't going to look that pretty, you just have to see how much grief even 720p rendered Xbox One games get from some people, though that is more an image quality problem, not a graphics quality problem as such (well partially if you think aliasing is an inherent factor of graphics quality). The problem being that a higher internal rendering resolution normally entails more processing power to maintain the same graphics and performance level.

 

[squirtle]

Yes, that last paragraph is what I'm getting at. If they're going with just one chip in the handheld, will the system have enough grunt to output a decent image to a TV whilst also not melting your hand off when used away from the base station and still be in a decent price range for the larger market they are aiming at? 

[JPickford]

I think it's plausible for the machine to be 'underclocked' when running on battery and rendering at 540p  then running at full speed in the dock and rendering at 1080p.  

 

 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Super Craig said:

I think they'll get eaten alive by the same people who expect Neo/Scorpio-level performance.

I love how you're thinking Neo and Scorpio are going to be anywhere near comparable. Unless Sony have gone back to the drawing board, the gulf between Scorpio and Neo will probably be more pronounced than the one between Neo and NX.

 

Not that I personally give a fuck about power as long as the games are plentiful.

[Super Craig]

13 minutes ago, Jon said:

I love how you're thinking Neo and Scorpio are going to be anywhere near comparable. Unless Sony have gone back to the drawing board, the gulf between Scorpio and Neo will probably be more pronounced than the one between Neo and NX.

 

Not that I personally give a fuck about power as long as the games are plentiful.

 

That wasn't my intention. And since I'll probably buy both, I'm not that bothered either.

[squirtle]

34 minutes ago, JPickford said:

I think it's plausible for the machine to be 'underclocked' when running on battery and rendering at 540p  then running at full speed in the dock and rendering at 1080p.  

 

 

I know it's all supposition at the moment, but how would it be cooled running at full speed when docked if all the guts are in the handheld part? Is it feasible to have some kind of cooling device external to the bit with all the tech in?

[JPickford]

6 minutes ago, APM said:

I know it's all supposition at the moment, but how would it be cooled running at full speed when docked if all the guts are in the handheld part? Is it feasible to have some kind of cooling device external to the bit with all the tech in?

 

I don't really know to be honest.   It's probably a design challenge.   Maybe a big fan in the dock and vents in the machine?

Maybe it doesn't get super hot running at full speed?  There will still be obvious battery saving benefits to running at lower speed when not connected to the mains.

In short:  I've no idea what I'm talking about.  

[Super Craig]

This might be where the networked processing patents come in.

[pulsemyne]

20 minutes ago, JPickford said:

 

I don't really know to be honest.   It's probably a design challenge.   Maybe a big fan in the dock and vents in the machine?

Maybe it doesn't get super hot running at full speed?  There will still be obvious battery saving benefits to running at lower speed when not connected to the mains.

In short:  I've no idea what I'm talking about.  

The only passive cooled verison of the X1 on the market is in the Google Pixel C and that version is downclocked to about 80 percent of the full fat (if memory serves me). So it can be cooled without a fan which should mean any pascal based chip with similar power could easily do the same.

However it's all a question of battery power. Nintendo will really need some very good batteries to power something as good, if not better than the WiiU for a sustained period of time. That maybe where the real cost of the system lies. Not in its SoC or its screen but in it's battery.

[Petrousgyre]

2 hours ago, Jon said:

I love how you're thinking Neo and Scorpio are going to be anywhere near comparable. Unless Sony have gone back to the drawing board, the gulf between Scorpio and Neo will probably be more pronounced than the one between Neo and NX.

 

Not sure I follow. If we assume NX will be around 1TFLOPS and Neo's specs dont change, then Neo will be around 4 times faster than NX. Scorpio will be 40% faster than Neo.

[Stanley]

6 hours ago, deKay said:

 

And talk about what? We still know nothing about the NX.

We know it's launching with Breath of The Wild, so we can deduct a fair amount from that.

 

Also someone mentioned DQX is in development for it, but I thought DQXI had already been confirmed a while back. 

[rafaqat]

So...chances of backwards compatibility are slim to none.  I have zero faith in Nintendo's software tech prowess to pull off a Microsoft VM solution.

I'm hoping that we either get free versions of MarioKart/Splatoon/Zelda if we bought them digitally or a really hefty discount.  

They're kind of done that for Wii VC games -> WiiU VC games so hopefully I'll get to carry over some of my digital game library.  It'd be a very quick way to build up the online communities for various games.

 

 

[Not Thread Owner]

50 minutes ago, Stanley said:

We know it's launching with Breath of The Wild, so we can deduct a fair amount from that.

 

Also someone mentioned DQX is in development for it, but I thought DQXI had already been confirmed a while back. 

 

Deduct what? That it won't have waggle?

[fasteasyfree]

3 hours ago, JPickford said:

 

I don't really know to be honest.   It's probably a design challenge.   Maybe a big fan in the dock and vents in the machine?

 

That's pretty much how I thought it would be done.

 

If it's docked in a traditional way, a grill in the bottom and top of the NX would mean you could drive air through it.

 

Unless someone can come up with some other explanation, running at two different performance profiles is the only thing that makes sense. Otherwise you're compromising either the graphical fidelity when plugged into a big screen, or playtime when out and about.

[Stanley]

53 minutes ago, deKay said:

 

Deduct what? That it won't have waggle?

Dual analogue controls and that it's as least as powerful as Wii U. 

 

I think it will have waggle also, not BOTW but NX.

[Xevious]

12 minutes ago, Stanley said:

Dual analogue controls and that it's as least as powerful as Wii U. 

 

I think it will have waggle also, not BOTW but NX.

 

Twilight Princess had dual analogues on the GameCube. Sort of - the second analogue stick wasn't really used much.

 

No waggle on the GC either.

[NEG]

A box that plays the latest Nintendo games

 

Or will it?

 

Let's speculate.