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https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/07/12/nvidia-super-smash-bros/

Meele HD Remaster (with so many Gameworks effects dr_rus won't be able to sleep for a week) confirmed

 

[G.ZZZ]

Why would the console receive a significant overclock when docked, then? Docking would make no difference to the cooling of the system, so why not run at full tilt in handheld mode in this scenario?

Because the GPU consume like 2 W at 500 Mhz compared to 10 W on 1Ghz? Batteries are something that exist. You don't have that limitation on AC. Also a fan consume another W or so, it'd make no sense to have it active on handheld mode.

 

[Night Angel]

Because the GPU consume like 2 W at 500 Mhz compared to 10 W on 1Ghz? Batteries are something that exist. You don't have that limitation on AC. Also a fan consume another W or so, it'd make no sense to have it active on handheld mode.

But wouldn't such a large power draw increase coincide with a heat increase?

Basically in my mind the heat will be the limiting factor to the power it could use while docked, as I cannot think of a way a docking station could cool the components of a separate and presumably closed handheld unit.

Unless there's evidence that a significant upclock could be achieved with minimal additional heat generation.

 

[dtm808]

I came up with an idea.

The system will have two modes:

1. Portable mode. AKA the regular mode where it'll it'll either be under-clocked, or whatever the normal use of the chips would be. Has a normal but very great battery life. 540p.

2. Console mode. Here the system is at max capacity in power where if the chip was under-clocked it'd be now be without its limit, or over-clocked, whichever. However, battery would now drain FAR faster and is designed to be docked. 1080p and 4K upscaling ala XBO S (it'd downscale if you're using it on the go).

This way, should the power go out when docked, it'll still be in console mode running on battery. You can then save your progress or just possibly change the mode and continue on for hours in portable mode.

That COULD work. It'd also give players an option to play console-quality if they don't care about battery life (easy access to a charger, playing at home, etc).

Thoughts?

I would hope the dock would prevent the handheld from using its battery as you wouldn't be able to charge it and draining the battery that fast would cause heat issues and kill the lifespan of the battery.

 

[shark sandwich]

Is the CPU not as important as the GPU because it seems like everyone makes a bigger deal of the GPU over the CPU?

I mean, I'm not a expert but Intel Skylake always dominates in gaming benchmarks. Game devs are definitely finding ways to benefit from strong single threaded performance. And assuming that "handheld mode" is running significantly below 1080p resolution, performance will probably be CPU bound most of the time.

 

[Hero of Legend]

If the output is 540p on battery, why even bother to have a screen that can output 1080p? Wouldn't that just increase the price for everyone for the benefit of only power users?

And if the power is out, how is your 1080p/4K screen magically still working?

No I mean when the power goes out it'll run on the battery in console mode.

The 1080p thing was an example where it'd only do that in console mode, it's not always going to be that, you just wouldn't use that setting in portable mode.

This is all assuming the dock has no additional graphical hardware.

I would hope the dock would prevent the handheld from using its battery as you wouldn't be able to charge it and draining the battery that fast would cause heat issues and kill the lifespan of the battery.

That's a concern about the idea. Could the battery even handle something like that?

Also this would be pointless if for instance you'd depend on an external USB HDD.

 

[PowerThroughLov]

This is my worst case scenario, well that might be a bit hyperbolic, let's call it my least optimal scenario.

It's a worst of both worlds situation that would likely mean a shitty handheld experience and a shitty console experience.

You're likely looking at only passable battery life for when used as a handheld with an admittedly nice resolution for a handheld, but ultimately overkill if we are talking about a ~5" screen. 540p would be much more efficient and still look really nice at that size. A larger resolution would only be needed if they are looking at a screen over 5.5-6", which would again suck as that would be far too large for a portable device when you factor in the controls and everything making the final size of the device well over 8 inches in length.

Then you are talking about a very suboptimal resolution for TV use in this day and age on a system releasing in 2016, hybrid or not. They need to target and hit 1080p on TV to be taken seriously as a console device. Sure not many Wii U games are 1080p, but some are, so to fail to even meet that standard would be extremely disappointing. I don't really care about XBO or PS4 comparisons, whether it can or cannot competitively match those systems and get equal ports from them is unimportant to me. I just want them to be able to do what Wii U did but in native 1080p instead of 720p.

Being able to take that on go or just laying about around the house and then have it on the TV by just sliding it into a dock is exactly what I want. But maybe that's asking too much.

Im not sure this allows Nintendo to achieve what they want however. At 540P handheld / 1080P Docked they strictly will need two sets of assets for the games. You cannot have a texture that looks great at both resolutions in 1 asset file. So they would be forced to essentially ship two games worth of asset files for each game.

Whereas mandating 720P for both significantly simplifies all of this. One single target for all cases. It just seems far more likely to me they would use any extra power the "dock" allows for asset-independent things - like higher AA / AF etc.

 

[Enduin]

Im not sure this allows Nintendo to achieve what they want however. At 540P handheld / 1080P Docked they strictly will need two sets of assets for the games. You cannot have a texture that looks great at both resolutions in 1 asset file. So they would be forced to essentially ship two games worth of asset files for each game.

Whereas mandating 720P for both significantly simplifies all of this. One single target for all cases. It just seems far more likely to me they would use any extra power the "dock" allows for asset-independent things - like higher AA / AF etc.

I think you're vastly over thinking the potential, if at all, issues of two different resolutions. PC games have dealt with far greater variables than that forever now. It's not a problem.

 

[PuppetMaster]

Here is the problem. Given everything of Nintendo's history, what is more likely:

1. Nintendo uses a 2 year old, released CPU/GPU system that has already got an Android port and sufficient yields to pump out millions of units in a few months (Tegra X1, Maxwell based). The X1 is also basically unused by anyone in the industry (only NVidia Shield) and will probably be super cheap to aquire.

2. Nintendo is going to use an unreleased, un taped out, never used by anyone else, new system (Tegra X2) that no one has any experience with, for a system that is supposed to release in 6-8 months. X2 is based on Pascal but has not even started final manufacturing processes.


Its really, really, really hard to believe any rumors that suggest #2 is true. Yeah, sure, maybe NVIdia has had a secret project to make an X2 based on Pascal specifically for Nintendo and its been a super tight secret. In an industry where every GPU tweak and leak occurs months in advance.

This. Anything else is just wishful thinking.

 

[LegendofLex]

No I mean when the power goes out it'll run on the battery in console mode.

But that goes back to my original point: why invest in a screen that can display 1080p at all if that tanks the battery life, especially if that also actually increases the cost of the system? And I don't know why you'd use a mode that tanks the battery life if the power is out, either.

The thing most people are proposing is that running off a power supply means you can toss battery life concerns out the window and display nicely on higher resolution screens. I don't think anyone wants to pay for a shiny high-resolution handheld screen if it destroys the system's portability. I certainly wouldn't want a 1080p screen that can only run at that resolution for an hour.

 

[Astral Dog]

I wonder, whats the target resolution for the games?
If its 2.5x Wii U would that be enough for Wii U games at 1080p?it also depends on memory right or bandwith

Im confused, i think they could keep gamed at 720p with much better graphics, or make far simpler games at 1080p. But either way it might not be enough for 1080p impressive games.

Also how third parties will choose, as a handheld its easy to figure as all games will run at 540p, for example. But as we see on Xbox One there are many 900 and some 720p in there.

 

[G.ZZZ]

But wouldn't such a large power draw increase coincide with a heat increase?

Basically in my mind the heat will be the limiting factor to the power it could use while docked, as I cannot think of a way a docking station could cool the components of a separate and presumably closed handheld unit.

Unless there's evidence that a significant upclock could be achieved with minimal additional heat generation.

The shield use a small fan that make no noise.

This thing , if it's really Pascal, could easily go at 1 Ghz and need absolutely no cooling. At 1.6 Ghz, it would hit the same consumption of the shield, and use a small silent fan for cooling. The shield isn't 20", it's 7", and i guess this is gonna be around the same. And i see no reason for why Nintendo would want a really slim Portable anyway, all their portable have been pretty chunky until now.

Unless the NX is like 4.5" phone size, i don't think heat would even be a problem at around 1 Ghz clock with 16nm FF architecture.

 

[Soldiussnaku]

Is the CPU not as important as the GPU because it seems like everyone makes a bigger deal of the GPU over the CPU?

Cpu is important as well, however in the gaming industry today, the trend is to offload tasks traditionally that were computed on the cpu, to the GPU. The cpu is acting more and more like a bus or a link between components in a device then the main central brain when iot comes to gaming.

Of course, there is still a lot of logic and game cpu tasks that only a cpu can do, like general physics processing, so expect nvidia to employ the many core strategy we see in the ps4 and xb1 and even the nvidia shield tv,to help with the cpu load. Fingers crossed they also use the latest arm architecture too.

 

[shiyrley]

Why don't current handhelds have this? Or phones? Or tablets?

Because current handhelds aren't hybrids?

Dude.

 

[Hero of Legend]

But that goes back to my original point: why invest in a screen that can display 1080p at all if that tanks the battery life, especially if that also actually increases the cost of the system? And I don't know why you'd use a mode that tanks the battery life if the power is out, either.

The thing most people are proposing is that running off a power supply means you can toss battery life concerns out the window and display nicely on higher resolution screens. I don't think anyone wants to pay for a shiny high-resolution handheld screen if it destroys the system's portability. I certainly wouldn't want a 1080p screen that can only run at that resolution for an hour.

Sorry, I mean 1080p as in the NX screen is 540p, but the 1080p bit is when it's docked to play on the TV. Hence the downscale bit when in console mode, it downscales the 1080p signal to the 540p screen.

I dunno, it was just an idea. But it's mainly as a way to prevent the device from shutting off if the power goes out, so that you have time to save or whatever.

I hope that was clearer.

 

[mugurumakensei]

I wonder, whats the target resolution for the games?
If its 2.5x Wii U would that be enough for Wii U games at 1080p?it also depends on memory right or bandwith

Im confused, i think they could keep gamed at 720p with much better graphics, or make far simpler games at 1080p. But either way it might not be enough for 1080p impressive games.

Also how third parties will choose, as a handheld its easy to figure as all games will run at 540p, for example. But as we see on Xbox One there are many 900 and some 720p in there.

I think dynamic scaling based on available resources is the best way to develop games going forward as iterative devices are the future also because that'd be the easiest way to make sure your game just works if and when SCD devices become a reality on the NX end.

 

[TLZ]

This is NateDrake of NeoGAF, who does have direct contact with Emily Rogers.

So everyone's source is Emily.

OK.

 

[Kimawolf]

This is an interesting thread. It began with some really credible rumors about Pascal being the the chip, people began to speculate, then people came in saying basically its wrong just because Nintendo wouldn't do it?

These people, if believed have seen it or heard it from reputable sources so shouldn't the basis of this thread be what this could mean for NX? Not basically saying these peoplevare liars and everyone should expect the worse?

 

[NateDrake]

So everyone's source is Emily.

OK.

No. This is my own information.

 

[PowerThroughLov]

This is my worst case scenario, well that might be a bit hyperbolic, let's call it my least optimal scenario.

It's a worst of both worlds situation that would likely mean a shitty handheld experience and a shitty console experience.

You're likely looking at only passable battery life for when used as a handheld with an admittedly nice resolution for a handheld, but ultimately overkill if we are talking about a ~5" screen. 540p would be much more efficient and still look really nice at that size. A larger resolution would only be needed if they are looking at a screen over 5.5-6", which would again suck as that would be far too large for a portable device when you factor in the controls and everything making the final size of the device well over 8 inches in length.

Then you are talking about a very suboptimal resolution for TV use in this day and age on a system releasing in 2016, hybrid or not. They need to target and hit 1080p on TV to be taken seriously as a console device. Sure not many Wii U games are 1080p, but some are, so to fail to even meet that standard would be extremely disappointing. I don't really care about XBO or PS4 comparisons, whether it can or cannot competitively match those systems and get equal ports from them is unimportant to me. I just want them to be able to do what Wii U did but in native 1080p instead of 720p.

Being able to take that on go or just laying about around the house and then have it on the TV by just sliding it into a dock is exactly what I want. But maybe that's asking too much.

I think you're vastly over thinking the potential, if at all, issues of two different resolutions. PC games have dealt with far greater variables than that forever now. It's not a problem.

Yeah Maybe. I know on PC if I run a game at High Texture quality and lower resolution the textures shimmer like crazy bad, but im sure that can be optimized out probably.

Really, I only care about the screen. Nintendo has never put a good screen into something they create. I really hope that changes (the portable aspect of this is what I look forward to the most).

 

[Night Angel]

This is an interesting thread. It began with some really credible rumors about Pascal being the the chip, people began to speculate, then people came in saying basically its wrong just because Nintendo wouldn't do it?

These people, if believed have seen it or heard it from reputable sources so shouldn't the basis of this thread be what this could mean for NX? Not basically saying these peoplevare liars and everyone should expect the worse?

I haven't seen many people saying that the NX won't use Pascal. Mostly the "negative Nancies" like myself have been responding to the posters speculating on ridiculous performance targets for portable devices.

 

[tuxfool]

Then, there's the issue of RAM bandwidth. Any overclock would likely be bottlenecked by this anyway.

I'm thinking RAM will be something like 4GB-6GB of lpDDR4 at ~50 GB/s. Or possibly half of that bandwidth plus an on-chip SRAM framebuffer of 16MB-32MB. Whatever fits. To me, this smells like a Gamecube to Wii scenario if we're thinking of NX as a home console.

This sort of thing needs to be quoted on every page. People getting into fanciful specs are not considering the system design as a whole. There is no point in having a TF capable GPU if it is going to be bottlenecked that way, inside or outside of the dock.

A frame buffer would take too much space, I rather think Nvidia uses their color compression and a better texture compression to save bandwidth. They could probably throw in a normal map compression if needed

I should point out that this colour/delta compression isn't free. The better the compression, the more patterns you have to match, thus increasing die space. I couldn't tell you whether the die space sacrifice is worth it for a cheap SoC.

 

[LCGeek]

I haven't seen many people saying that the NX won't use Pascal. Mostly the "negative Nancies" like myself have been responding to the posters speculating on ridiculous performance targets for portable devices.

I literally don't think it one bit unless nintendo says so. Other things are required cause quite frankly fermi or old tegra wasn't good enough not when it comes to power saving or being power efficient.

 

[Renekton]

Isnt Pascal just Maxwell with slight tweaks?

But 16nm will be awesome.

 

[wachie]

Tegra X1 is already a 512 GFlops chip.

Yes I expect X2 to minimum double that with NX in docked mode.

BTW I'm talking about FP32 because Tegra X1 is 1 TFlops in FP16 if Nintendo wishes to programing using half-precision.

Nvidia flops are not AMD flops. Nvidia 1.33 TFlops would actually be quite close to the PS4 in terms of real-world performance provided the chip is balanced ..... which brings the biggest question which NO ONE has yet brought up.

Memory bandwidth

A theoretical 1-1.33 TFlop Tegra would be terribly balanced against a 30GB/s memory bandwidth. Unless they went with an on-die DRAM solution which again would make the whole thing very expensive.

 

[tuxfool]

Isnt Pascal just Maxwell with slight tweaks?

But 16nm will be awesome.

Yes. Maxwell tegra is manufactured at 20nm, you're not going to see big density improvements, but it will be much more power efficient and generally clock higher for a given power envelope.

This is also presuming that Pascal functions in the same way on a TSMC 16nm LP process as it does on 16FF+.

Nvidia flops are not AMD flops. Nvidia 1.33 TFlops would actually be quite close to the PS4 in terms of real-world performance provided the chip is balanced ..... which brings the biggest question which NO ONE has yet brought up.

Memory bandwidth

A theoretical 1-1.33 TFlop Tegra would be terribly balanced against a 30GB/s memory bandwidth. Unless they went with an on-die DRAM solution which again would make the whole thing very expensive.

Nobody?

Cough...

 

[BDGAME]

If you want reliable overclocks, an increase of 100% is not likely, think more like 10-15%.

Also remember that the Shield TV has a fan in it too, so it's entirely possible the dev kits aren't overclocked, just setup to be very reliable, or using off the shelf fans.

Good to know.

So, maybe Tegra N1 is nothing more than a Tegra X1 that use pascal and that way can achieve same kind of power on a portable that we only have now on shield TV.

 

[Discomurf]

No. This is my own information.

Hmm, seems like info is starting to get out there.. going by past patterns, I would not be surprised if Nintendo makes an announcement along with the reveal event date in next week or so.

 

[wachie]

Nobody?

Cough...

Apologies if you have, I didn't read it hence the post.

 

[Leona Lewis]

Any hardware manufacturer who makes it possible for me to play bespoke Dark Souls at home and then continue on the go will have my heart forever.

This news makes that possibility ever so slightly more possible.

 

[MuchoMalo]

The shield use a small fan that make no noise.

This thing , if it's really Pascal, could easily go at 1 Ghz and need absolutely no cooling. At 1.6 Ghz, it would hit the same consumption of the shield, and use a small silent fan for cooling. The shield isn't 20", it's 7", and i guess this is gonna be around the same. And i see no reason for why Nintendo would want a really slim Portable anyway, all their portable have been pretty chunky until now.

Unless the NX is like 4.5" phone size, i don't think heat would even be a problem at around 1 Ghz clock with 16nm FF architecture.

I just want to note that you're a bit off here. the X1 is 20nm, not 28nm. The theoretical maximum increase in performance without increasing power consumption is 40%.


On that note, after giving it some thought and considering an earlier post about it being at normal clocks while docked and downclocking on the go, I think I can explain this in a way which makes sense to the naysayers. First of all, I'm abanoning the idea of an actively cooled dock since I had doubts about the feasibility of that anyway. Beyond that, here's the idea:

What some of you are thinking is that it's been designed as a handheld without any thought to the console functionality beyond a dock with HDMI out and wireless controllers; in other words, that it's a handheld with console functionality as an afterthought. I would like to propose that it was actually designed to be a hybrid from the start. Let's say that the Tegra NX is designed as a chip with a 2GHz CPU and 1GHz GPU. The device itself is designed to be able to cool this chip. However, at this speed the battery drain is rather intense. In addition, it may be a little hot to the touch when running at full speed. Why design it this way? Because it only runs at full speed while docked, when you don't need to touch it or worry about battery life. When in portable mode, the GPU clock is cut in half, to 500MHz, for the sake of good battery life. The screen is 720p, and games render in 1080p in console mode. It's much weaker than Xbone even in console mode. This assumes a tablet-like form-factor, rather than a usual handheld.

Is this acceptable?

 

[PeterLegend]

This would be great news if true, but I'm doubtful...

 

[EVH]

Any hardware manufacturer who makes it possible for me to play bespoke Dark Souls at home and then continue on the go will have my heart forever.

This news makes that possibility ever so slightly more possible.

Would not count on that, but sounds pretty good, too.

Nintendo must be doing something really wrong when they dont get third support even when they sell like the Wii did. Im pretty sure the problem is lack of power to port UE4 and engines like that, but im not sure anymore.

 

[tuxfool]

Apologies if you have, I didn't read it hence the post.

Not just I. It was mentioned in the previous thread and earlier in this thread.

However there are plenty of people pushing the comparable to current consoles theory that are indeed ignoring this wrinkle

 

[pulsemyne]

This. Anything else is just wishful thinking.

You don't actually have to have experience with tegra X2 as maxwell and Pascal are very similar. Pascal is basically a refined maxwell on a better process. It's not like the old days where when a new chip came out it was completely foreign. Drivers and software are all cross compatible. And if they have been using overclocked X1's to simulate it's performance then it will be easy to work with. Devs will know what kind of performance to expect.

 

[Eolz]

Would not count on that, but sounds pretty good, too.

Nintendo must be doing something really wrong when they dont get third support even when they sell like the Wii did. Im pretty sure the problem is lack of power to port UE4 and engines like that, but im not sure anymore.

Power doesn't bring third parties, but lack of power definitely keep some at bay.
It's a mix of a lot of things and is really complicated, sometimes for good reasons (install base, can't run a decent port, etc), sometime for really dumb ones (like personal biais at the top of the chain, seen that myself). It's also a problem coming from both sides really (Nintendo dumb policies for a long time, online only getting good since recently, third parties expecting a really late/poor port to sell really well, both being stubborn, etc).

 

[ffdgh]

Huh sounds very promising!

Spoiler

That scares me lol

 

[anothertech]

So more powerful than Scorpio confirmed?

 

[IrgendwasmitRot]

Ehm... DBZ-level?

 

[Kamek]

No. This is my own information.

We appreciate it. Don't listen to that dude.

 

[TheGreatMightyPoo]

So more powerful than Scorpio confirmed?

It's two Scorpios taped together.

 

[slapnuts]

so ps4 in my pocket

lol


Seriously though, We already know its not competing with current consoles although it might get sorta close to Xbox One on its good days, depending how efficient they can get on the hardware, which we know Nintendo are good at getting every last drop of power out of hardware, at least imho.

I sure hope its closer to the X2, I really wanted Nintendo to do a powerful console this time around that produced visuals on par current gen's best ...but maybe we might get something close to that. I couldn't careless about portable gaming...I just want a Nintendo machine that produces jaw dropping visuals on my 55 inch Plasma. We've waited far far too long for this...last Nin console that did this, for its time, was GC.

 

[Herne]

I thought the reason they were rumoured to go with Tegra was that AMD didn't have anything in that market. If they're just going with a Pascal chip, why would they leave their long-standing relationship with AMD, who can offer the same power level chips for cheaper? This doesn't make sense, AMD has always offered cheaper gpu's for consoles, that's why all of the current consoles have them (well, it helped that Microsoft and nVidia burned bridges with each other).

 

[Vena]

I thought the reason they were rumoured to go with Tegra was that AMD didn't have anything in that market. If they're just going with a Pascal chip, why would they leave their long-standing relationship with AMD, who can offer the same power level chips for cheaper? This doesn't make sense, AMD has always offered cheaper gpu's for consoles, that's why all of the current consoles have them (well, it helped that Microsoft and nVidia burned bridges with each other).

AMD has crap for low power, low heat chips.

 

[gafneo]

I think Nvidia makes sense. Nintendo is doing a restructuring of the company, They want to joint mobile with TV gaming. Nvidia has proven to join both these things with flying colors. The Shield mobiles are the best hybrids on the market.

 

[magash]

I thought the reason they were rumoured to go with Tegra was that AMD didn't have anything in that market. If they're just going with a Pascal chip, why would they leave their long-standing relationship with AMD, who can offer the same power level chips for cheaper? This doesn't make sense, AMD has always offered cheaper gpu's for consoles, that's why all of the current consoles have them (well, it helped that Microsoft and nVidia burned bridges with each other).

Because AMD is dying. Sony and MS are going to be in trouble when AMD eventually closes shop.

 

[Cerium]

I thought the reason they were rumoured to go with Tegra was that AMD didn't have anything in that market. If they're just going with a Pascal chip, why would they leave their long-standing relationship with AMD, who can offer the same power level chips for cheaper? This doesn't make sense, AMD has always offered cheaper gpu's for consoles, that's why all of the current consoles have them (well, it helped that Microsoft and nVidia burned bridges with each other).

Nothing in this post makes sense. Pascal is not a chip, it's an architecture that will be used by next generation Tegra GPUs.

The chip in the NX is rumored to be a customized Tegra using Pascal architecture. One source called it the Tegra N1.

 

[wachie]

I thought the reason they were rumoured to go with Tegra was that AMD didn't have anything in that market. If they're just going with a Pascal chip, why would they leave their long-standing relationship with AMD, who can offer the same power level chips for cheaper? This doesn't make sense, AMD has always offered cheaper gpu's for consoles, that's why all of the current consoles have them (well, it helped that Microsoft and nVidia burned bridges with each other).

Nintendo went with Nvidia for the same reason Microsoft and Sony went with AMD.

 

[gafneo]

It's two Scorpios taped together.

Lol, here's an exaggeration. Maybe Nintendo is not making the NX a consumer device in the first place. NX could be a kiosk gaming arcade placed next to Redboxes. People buy game adapter for 3DS, phone, and WiiU. They play the cloud of next gen at home, but go to in store kiosk for 4 titan gtxs, 8k triple screen monitors, no glasses 3D curved displays, optional VR.Cloud servers are built in every kiosk to stream high speed bits to close buy mobile and home units.

 

[_PsiFire_]

Hmm, I have a theory on the rumored deal Nintendo received from Nvidia.

Let's say during negotiations, Nvidia said they would give a deal to ensure they would be used for this SCD idea/patent.

Nvidia would give it there all to knock the handheld out of the park, allowing Nintendo to get devices in millions of hands. This way, they will get their payday anytime they work with Nintendo on SCD's that could get the NX up to - possibly - PS4 NEO specs and above.

Could that boosted output even be possible with a SCD?