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[BDGAME]

NX may not need to run above 540p on a small display, but if a big part of this device is it's ability to plug and play on a large display - it will need to natively run it's games at 1280x720 or have a clever solution to save/gain performance between it's handheld and TV modes.

The Wii U runs most games at 1280x720 and my understanding is a stock Tegra X1 is a better all-around GPU than the one that currently exists in Wii U. I'm not sure why it can't just be native 720p and be superior to Wii U, if not by a whole lot.

If is to do the same thing than Wii U, better be a 1080p. If is to do things close to Xbox and Ps4, then I more than glad with a 540p portable.

 

[Tommy DJ]

If that was the case, the market would not have demanded higher resolution in the first case. Phablets are a thing and tthey have exploded in popularity all around the world, over the years thanks to consumers want and need of higher resolution, bigger screens. Apple, one of the most prominent, profitable, and best selling made higher resolution displays on their phones due to the demands of their market, their consumer base which totals millions upon millions. They could of easily stuck with 4, 4.7, and 5.5 960x540 screens on all of their phones, but competitors like Samsung made it a point to get million of millions to buy into hd phones, years ago. Yes it was a marketing bullet point, but it damn well worked and since then consumers have brought into more and more higher resolution displays.

The market isn't really asking for higher resolution screens. They're asking for high quality screens. If it was, it would actually sell phones. It doesn't, the Sony's 4K screen didn't do anything for for the Xperia Z Premium nor did the initial 1440P IPS phones sell gangbusters. Heck, I don't even think Apple really specifies what a Retina screen actually is from a resolution standpoint.

There is an expectation for screen quality, not sheer resolution. Its not the resolution selling Samsung phones, its the OLED with its sharpness, black depth, contrast, and colour space. Having sold consumer electronics before, the numbers game only works when a consumer is confused and asks the salesman if they need, say, X amount of RAM. The problem with a display is that they can see demo stock and easily determine if they are getting any benefit from the extra resolution.

Screen resolution for a small mobile device isn't really that important once you've hit certain numbers. There are other fish to fry, such as pixel response, black depth and colour space coverage that make a significantly higher boost to image quality than sheer resolution. Its why the original 1440P display in that LG smartphone didn't excite anyone - it had the best resolution/pixel pitch at the time but the colour space coverage and contrast sucked so consumers thought it looked worse than Samsung and Apple offerings.

 

[LeleSocho]

The Snapdragon 820 is the highest end chip set from Qualcomm did and high-end gaming is fine on those phones and they render at HD resolutions. And that's without really pushing the chip. The only times gaming might not be so great is if games aren't quite optimized for the chip because it's still relatively new. But your massively underestimating the power of mobile devices. Sure, they won't match the Xbox One and PS4 for quite sometime but they've easily outclassed the Xbox 360/PS3 and are capable enough to run game engines those two cannot even UE4. And that's at least with 720p resolutions.

You clearly don't understand and know what are you talking about.

1) The most demanding mobile games (that are not hw specific like stuff on Tegra) are not even nearly as pushing as console games, be it handheld or home.
2) Snapdragon 820 is more than halfway through its lifecycle, claiming that games are not optimized for it is funny to say the least
3) Even your loved S820 throttles like hell after 10 minutes of these mobile games (which even when not throttling struggles to maintain stable framerate)
4) PS360 not supporting UE4 is less a question about computational power and more about marketing and supported api/feature set.

I think there's an UE4 tech demo (which is far from a full fledged game) on the App Stores, try to run it for an hour or so and tell me if the phone still maintains decent framerates at native resolution.

And by the way... i'm not an expert whatsoever.

 

[Spyder_Monkey]

That's fine, except the NX needs to be able to match the Xbox one and PS4 graphically. To some extent it needs to run the same experiences as Neo and Scorpio. Which means resolution is the obvious sacrifice to make is resolution. Ask yourself what would you rather play. A PS3 game at 1080p or a Neo/Scorpio game at 540p. On a device with a 5 inch screen that isn't even a question

The NX will not be on par with the PS4/Xbone and sure as hell not on par with Neo/Scorpio no matter the resolution. A really good mobile chip is still going to lose to a middle of the road semi-custom APU from AMD. That's delusional. Not to mention what's stopping Nintendo from using an HD screen and if a game is really that intensive just dial back the resolution. No reason to hold back a lower end game that would look great in HD like Ace Attorney. Also what's passable in 2012 is not passable today. If Sony were to make the Vita in 2016, they would not go for a 540p screen because 540p is uncool and low-end in 2016, hell 720p is considered low end in 2016.

This will the my last post on the subject because while it is entirely possible that Nintendo will go for a sub-HD screen on the NX, it will because it's a cheap part and that's it. Using a 540p screen isn't going to make games look on par with Neo/Scorpio even on a Tegra X1 chip. But still more pixels would go a long way to make games look great.

 

[Chezzymann]

I just realized that the next generation of Pokemon will probably be full 3D, analog movement, and a more console like experience. I'm actually pretty hyped.

 

[GhostTrick]

The NX will not be on par with the PS4/Xbone and sure as hell not on par with Neo/Scorpio no matter the resolution. A really good mobile chip is still going to lose to a middle of the road desktop chip. That's delusional. Not to mention what's stopping Nintendo from using an HD screen and if a game is really that intensive just dial back the resolution. No reason to hold back a lower end game that would look great in HD like Ace Attorney. Also what's passable in 2012 is not passable today. If Sony were to make the Vita in 2016, they would not go for a 540p screen because 540p is uncool and low-end in 2016, hell 720p is considered low end in 2016.

This will the my last post on the subject because while it is entirely possible that Nintendo will go for a sub-HD screen on the NX, it will because it's a cheap part and that's it. Using a 540p screen isn't going to make games look on par with Neo/Scorpio even on a Tegra X1 chip. But still more pixels would go a long way to make games look great.

Why are you conveniently dodging the part about performance cost ? With actual benchmarks and data ?

 

[PHOENIXZERO]

This moved too much since I last posted but with the watt/heat talk I think people need to be reminded that the Tegra X1 has a TDP of 15W. If they use X2 they could possibly get a significant performance boost at the same TDP and potentially much lower power consumption running in "handheld mode".

 

[Sheroking]

If is to do the same thing than Wii U, better be a 1080p. If is to do things close to Xbox and Ps4, then I more than glad with a 540p portable.

I'm not sure what this means?

We know it's a portable that has a TV out feature, so it can operate as both handheld and console. If that's true, than it must be designed to work properly in either "mode".

Which is why I don't think native 540p is good enough, because while it may look fine on a mobile display, it won't look very good on a 1440p display. So either games need to output at better resolutions or the device must have a clever way to gain/save performance depending on it's mode.

 

[BorkBork]

Just read the last page of this thread and got a headache. Like talking to a brick wall.

 

[Otakumegane]

I just realized that the next generation of Pokemon will probably be full 3D, analog movement, and a more console like experience. I'm actually pretty hyped.

I wouldn't bet on it having dual analog movement. (Or it may have the option but it will not be the default). Nintendo has been trying to solve the problem of complexity in controls and movement for a long time now. Moving from the first tier of controls (One-button, touch screen) directly to dual analog is near impossible for many people. Pokemon as a franchise needs to appeal to a younger and often much less experienced audience, compounded by the fact that new audiences will be brought in by the aftereffects of Go.

Hell, I think the way the NX actually holds 3 different "tiers" of controls is something that deserves a thread of itself, and how Nintendo's design philosophy over the years has been noting their efforts to solve this problem.

 

[GhostTrick]

I'm not sure what this means?

We know it's a portable that has a TV out feature, so it can operate as both handheld and console. If that's true, than it must be designed to work properly in either "mode".

Which is why I don't think native 540p is good enough, because while it may look fine on a mobile display, it won't look very good on a 1440p display. So either games need to output at better resolutions or the device must have a clever way to gain/save performance depending on it's mode.

You know that games can render at different native res ?
It's not about clever way to gain/save performance.
You can display your game at 540p on handheld, and when docked, runs it at native 1080p.

 

[Nanashrew]

The NX will not be on par with the PS4/Xbone and sure as hell not on par with Neo/Scorpio no matter the resolution. A really good mobile chip is still going to lose to a middle of the road desktop chip. That's delusional. Not to mention what's stopping Nintendo from using an HD screen and if a game is really that intensive just dial back the resolution. No reason to hold back a lower end game that would look great in HD like Ace Attorney. Also what's passable in 2012 is not passable today. If Sony were to make the Vita in 2016, they would not go for a 540p screen because 540p is uncool and low-end in 2016, hell 720p is considered low end in 2016.

This will the my last post on the subject because while it is entirely possible that Nintendo will go for a sub-HD screen on the NX, it will because it's a cheap part and that's it. Using a 540p screen isn't going to make games look on par with Neo/Scorpio even on a Tegra X1 chip. But still more pixels would go a long way to make games look great.

PS4 and Xbox One are running on mobile chips, not desktop chips...

 

[ShadowFox08]

Everyone that is saying that its impossible for the NX to match X1 or PS4 base specs need to shut the hell up. Unless you have actual damning evidence from Nintendo and Nvidia to back it up, you have no idea what you're saying.

As for the people who are saying that they are just fine with settling with two Wii us taped together.. Ugh. I can tell that you are likely more into the mobile side of Nintendo, but the home console is just as important--if the NX ends up being a single console hybrid.

I'm in it for the console experience. Its fine if the handheld is downclocoed to be x1 or slightly weaker, but if the console while docked is weaker than the X1 with no scd support to make it close to PS4, I can't see third parties staying for long. And I want all the major third party multiplats with similar experience--not inferior ports on the NX. And no, I'm not buying a PS4 or a xbone1. Nintendo can't survive on not directly competing against Sony and Microsoft any longer. They can have their special gimmick, but they need decent power as well.

 

[TheGreatMightyPoo]

I haven't seen anybody talk about this, but how would Splatoon 2 work on the NX if you take it on the go? Or a Super Mario Maker 2 when the NX is docked?

I pray to the gods that you'll be able to play Splatoon 2 on the portable.
It was a huge bummer to me that you can't play Splatoon on the Gamepad.

 

[Spyder_Monkey]

PS4 and Xbox One are running on mobile chips, not desktop chips...

They're more like laptop/netbook chips and use x86 like desktops. Not a mobile chip in the same way the Tegra is and still middle of the road and extremely hard to compare to the Tegra because that and Jaguar are extremely different.

 

[castaction]

I just realized that the next generation of Pokemon will probably be full 3D, analog movement, and a more console like experience. I'm actually pretty hyped.

That what on my mind since the eurogamer article im so hyped

 

[Chezzymann]

I wouldn't bet on it having dual analog movement. (Or it may have the option but it will not be the default). Nintendo has been trying to solve the problem of complexity in controls and movement for a long time now. Moving from the first tier of controls (One-button, touch screen) directly to dual analog is near impossible for many people. Pokemon as a franchise needs to appeal to a younger and often much less experienced audience, compounded by the fact that new audiences will be brought in by the aftereffects of Go.

Hell, I think the way the NX actually holds 3 different "tiers" of controls is something that deserves a thread of itself, and how Nintendo's design philosophy over the years has been noting their efforts to solve this problem.

Not dual analog, maybe just one analog stick where you can go any direction and aren't locked to 8 different ones like the 3DS games. And maybe you can go faster the more you tilt the joy stick.

I mainly hope the "grid based" mentality is gone in the next generation of Pokemon and we get more 3D styled worlds and not worlds that feel like 2D ones translated to 3D.

I'm talking like, maybe buildings that are at an angle. Woah.

 

[PHOENIXZERO]

The PS4 and especially XBO's specs are nothing to write home about in terms of performance in 2016, they weren't that much either three years ago. It's entirely possible for a mobile platform to reach XBO performance (in the docked mode at least) if Nintendo wants to.

 

[Portugeezer]

Tbh, I feel 540p is an ideal middle ground for sharp picture and good performance.

When I played my Vita I never thought it needed more pixels, native res games looked really smooth and crisp.

I think 5" 540p in handheld mode is fine. Anything less might look a bit cheap in a world where everyone has pretty high dpi mobile devices, but Nintendo did make the Wii U pad 480p at 6" so you never know...

Everyone that is saying that its impossible for the NX to match X1 or PS4 base specs need to shut the hell up. Unless you have actual damning evidence from Nintendo and Nvidia to back it up, you have no idea what you're saying.

As for the people who are saying that they are just fine with settling with two Wii us taped together.. Ugh. I can tell that you are likely more into the mobile side of Nintendo, but the home console is just as important--if the NX ends up being a single console hybrid.

I'm in it for the console experience. Its fine if the handheld is downclocoed to be x1 or slightly weaker, but if the console while docked is weaker than the X1 with no scd support to make it close to PS4, I can't see third parties staying for long. And I want all the major third party multiplats with similar experience--not inferior ports on the NX. And no, I'm not buying a PS4 or a xbone1. Nintendo can't survive on not directly competing against Sony and Microsoft any longer. They can have their special gimmick, but they need decent power as well.

Look how much all these third party games mean to you.

 

[Servbot24]

yup. that alone is super exciting. This doesn't feel grim at all.

Honestly I feel like it will be great for fans this gen but possibly will reduce Nintendo mindshare even further in the future. If there's only one system they need to go all in and it may turn out that's not even enough.

 

[KrawlMan]

That what on my mind since the eurogamer article im so hyped

Not so certain GameFreak would immediately jump to full 3D even with this power. I kind of expect the same top-down world, but with better effects/textures, and finally some aliasing. I'd be thrilled with an I Am Setsuna level of quality.

 

[GhostTrick]

Not so certain GameFreak would immediately jump to full 3D even with this power. I kind of expect the same top-down world, but with better effects/textures, and finally some aliasing. I'd be thrilled with an I Am Setsuna level of quality.

They're jumping into full 3D with Sun and Moon.

 

[jdstorm]

The NX will not be on par with the PS4/Xbone and sure as hell not on par with Neo/Scorpio no matter the resolution. A really good mobile chip is still going to lose to a middle of the road desktop chip. That's delusional. Not to mention what's stopping Nintendo from using an HD screen and if a game is really that intensive just dial back the resolution. No reason to hold back a lower end game that would look great in HD like Ace Attorney. Also what's passable in 2012 is not passable today. If Sony were to make the Vita in 2016, they would not go for a 540p screen because 540p is uncool and low-end in 2016, hell 720p is considered low end in 2016.

This will the my last post on the subject because while it is entirely possible that Nintendo will go for a sub-HD screen on the NX, it will because it's a cheap part and that's it. Using a 540p screen isn't going to make games look on par with Neo/Scorpio even on a Tegra X1 chip. But still more pixels would go a long way to make games look great.

Different graphical effects cost different amount of computing power. Just look at the PC benchmarks for games like The Witcher 3 and Rise of the Tomb Raider. 1st with Hairworks turned off, and then with Hairworks turned off. I never said that the NX would be comparable in power to Scorpio/Neo. That's insane. What I said was that it had to be able to run modern demanding games. Rendering a game in 1080p takes 4x the computing power of rendering that same game at 540p. So if the Neo at 4.2 Tflps renders a game at 1080p. Then it would take roughly 1Gflp to render that game at 540p with all the effects turned on.

Baseline performance for the current generation is the Xbox one and it renders Mirrors Edge:Catalyst (a recent game that's graphically demanding) at 720p/60 with 1.2Tflps of power. Assuming linear scaling it would take roughly 600Gflps of power to render Mirrors Edge Catalyst in 540p/60. So in practice a 600gflp machine would on a 5 inch screen be able to make the experience of playing Mirrors Edge Catalyst feel comparable to playing it rendered natively in 1080p on Scorpio/Neo on a Large (40 inch) full HD TV. Obviously the 600GFLP machine is 1/10th as powerful as Scorpio. But if all that extra power is going to render the game in a higher resolution. A resolution that most will be unable to perceive. The actual experience of playing the game will be similar.

For simpler games like Ace Attourney ect. downsampling exists the game can be natively rendered in HD resolutions, 1080p even 4K if it's simple enough and Output on a 540p display. The difference will be marginal at that size. However if you want to play it on a larger screen you will notice the difference

 

[Neoleo2143]

I just realized that the next generation of Pokemon will probably be full 3D, analog movement, and a more console like experience. I'm actually pretty hyped.

It's already full 3D and analog movement as of Sun/Moon. The "console experience" is debatable if you're talking gamefreak dropping a general sense of linearity and going open world because that probably won't happen.

 

[James Scott]

What about the Free Form display?

Is it possible its going to be utilized with this system?

I'd imagine it would've been part of the leak. Would be kind of weird with the controller attachments

 

[TLZ]

Why everyone keeps talking about smartphones?

Because it's a portable.

 

[Chezzymann]

It's already full 3D and analog movement as of Sun/Moon. The "console experience" is debatable if you're talking gamefreak dropping a general sense of linearity and going open world because that probably won't happen.

Oh really? Cool. I was just assuming sun and moon was more X and Y but with a new region. Whoops. Are the town's and stuff still grid based though?

 

[Nanashrew]

Oh really? Cool. I was just assuming sun and moon was more X and Y but with a new region. Whoops. Are the town's and stuff still grid based though?

No more grid as of Sun & Moon.

 

[Portugeezer]

No more grid as of Sun & Moon.

Oh thank fuck.

 

[KrawlMan]

They're jumping into full 3D with Sun and Moon.

Oof. Apparently I'm a bit too out of touch with recent Pokemon news. Just watched the trailer

Well that changes things a bit. It'd be fantastic to see something DQXI level from GameFreak.

It's already full 3D and analog movement as of Sun/Moon. The "console experience" is debatable if you're talking gamefreak dropping a general sense of linearity and going open world because that probably won't happen.

Please keep the linearity I've had too much open world lately.

 

[Skittzo0413]

Thinking about the SKU talk from a few pages ago, I wonder if the base NX can come with the portable and a dummy dock which allows the portable to display to the TV and upclocks it enough to display at 1080p due to the AC adaptor, and then you can buy an attachment module which contains another Tegra N1 (for lack of an official name) that plugs into the dock to increase the performance to or past PS4 levels. Sorta like a modern expansion pack, and somewhat similar to the SCDs.

This is as opposed to offering just a portable without a dock, or two different dock SKUs as some were suggesting. It's also similar to what the Brazilian guy on that forum was suggesting, though I kinda doubt he was legit.

Not that Nintendo would do this, but it does sound like a more elegant and palatable solution to the multiple SKU problem.

 

[dogen]

Nobody is saying that there wouldn't be a power drain, but your acting like a 720p would be huge power drain. It's not. Chip efficiency and performance have gotten so good that it's better to render at that resolution to get more detail without really sacrificing performance or battery life. Smart devices and game developers have been working with higher resolutions for years now. The benefits of using a 720p screen easily outweighs using a 480p or 540p screen because every programmer worth their salt now has apps and games optimized for these resolutions. At best if say Nintendo wanted to port their new Fire Emblem mobile game, an app that runs that will run at native resolution on my iPhone 6, all they would do is render the app at 540p and that's it. No performance increases, no higher graphical fidelity. All you would get is a worst version of the game than on an iPhone 6 because of the lower resolution.

You may think 540p is better but it's not. You're actively wanting your device gimped for next to no benefits.

Better performance, visuals, and battery life = gimping?

 

[n0razi]

Thinking about the SKU talk from a few pages ago, I wonder if the base NX can come with the portable and a dummy dock which allows the portable to display to the TV and upclocks it enough to display at 1080p due to the AC adaptor, and then you can buy an attachment module which contains another Tegra N1 (for lack of an official name) that plugs into the dock to increase the performance to or past PS4 levels. Sorta like a modern expansion pack, and somewhat similar to the SCDs.

This is one of those ideas that sounds great at first but is a terrible business idea.. more complexity leads to more problems (more hardware failures, more development, more confusion).

 

[Skittzo0413]

This is one of those ideas that sounds great at first but is a terrible business idea.. more complexity leads to more problems (more hardware failures, more development, more confusion).

I'm bringing this up as an alternative to offering multiple docks or a GPU in a dock sold separately, so I would think this alleviates confusion. Not sure about hardware failures but the industry seems to be accepting development for several different power levels, if Neo and Scorpio are anything to go by.

 

[Soldiussnaku]

The market didn't asked for this. You really believe that people needed 1440p screen on 5 to 6 inches ? The screen resolution race exist because phone upgrades every year but innovation can't follow.
The screen resolution evolves faster than GPU performances.
If you were right, Why would iPhone 6 and 6s still sells a lot when it's barely a 750p screen ?

I believe with bigger screens came higher expectations from consumers regarding resolution, since the boom of the hd ready and full hd TVs, and the market reacted accordingly and expected more, hence higher resolution devices. Manufacturers simply could've not bothered to update the resolutions at all on these bigger screened devices and kept them to a 720p standard or less, however they didn't. Sure innovation does play a part, as you said, but I don't see a single manufacturer of mobile devices stick to a resolution and call it a day, resolutions are increasing across the board, both in low and end end devices, globally. If we consumers didn't want higher resolutions, the appeal would have plateaued by now. By all means manufacturers can spend the budget in increasing screen quality at the expense of res, but that doesn't sell devices, including consoles and pc's, buzzwords to do with ever increasing resolutions do, imho. Gaf loves its 4K TVs, they once loved 1080p TVs. We even see that in the iPhone 6 keynote, with phil Schiller extolling the virtues of the bigger higher resolution screens by using the benefits to sell to consumers. The reason why iPhone 6 sold so much was in part due to the screen size, yes of course, but that went in hand in hand with the res, they delivered to their consumers what there competitors were providing. The 6s sold less, Apple has had recently a quarter or two where they shipped/sold fewer iPhones overall, despite the new hardware.

 

[Otakumegane]

Sun/Moon employs a fixed angle camera 3D world.

Kinda like the areas where the cameras shifted to see the bridge and the windmill in XY but everywhere. This is where Pokemon NX should look like as well I hope.

I do hope that the style of future Pokemons are well equipped to handle being rendered into dynamic resolutions. The models for Pokemon look great fortunately.

 

[Neoleo2143]

Sun/Moon employs a fixed angle camera 3D world.

Kinda like the areas where the cameras shifted to see the bridge and the windmill in XY but everywhere. This is where Pokemon NX should look like as well I hope.

I do hope that the style of future Pokemons are well equipped to handle being rendered into dynamic resolutions. The models for Pokemon look great fortunately.

Looking at Sun And Moon, I can't believe how much I missed older RPGs and their fixed cameras that made for generally so much more interesting aesthetics on average.

 

[Ansatz]

No more grid as of Sun & Moon.

Are you sure it's no longer possible to snap back into grid/lane based movement using the d-pad as in X/Y?

I mean the areas, paths and stuff are still relatively flat and rectangular in shape with hard lines separating background from the gameplay field. At least it appears that you could feasibly implement grid movement into Sun/Moon, whereas in games like Ni No Kuni it's impossible give the uneven nature of the terrain:

Just by looking at some of the gameplay footage you see level design geometry that could easily be approximated to grids and tiles:

 

[Nanashrew]

Are you sure it's no longer possible to snap back into grid/lane based movement using the d-pad as in X/Y?

I mean the areas, paths and stuff are still relatively flat and rectangular in shape with hard lines separating background from the gameplay field. At least it appears that you could feasibly implement grid movement into Sun/Moon, whereas in games like Ni No Kuni it's impossible give the uneven nature of the terrain:



Just by looking at some of the gameplay footage you see level design geometry that could easily be approximated to grids and tiles:

It was on Treehouse Live though. The trainer's starter house has a tiled floor but he's standing and stepping on the lines. There are no grids. Also more vertical terrain in Sun & Moon too.

https://youtu.be/UC-uLg_5RIA?t=22m10s

Fake edit: They say you have free full analog movement in the time stamp.

 

[Ansatz]

It was on Treehouse Live though. The trainer's starter house has a tiled floor but he's standing and stepping on the lines. There are no grids. Also more vertical terrain in Sun & Moon too.

https://youtu.be/UC-uLg_5RIA?t=22m10s

Fake edit: They say you have free full analog movement in the time stamp.

None of what is said on the stream deconfirms grid movement though, they only say there's full analog movement this time. You could still theoretically use the d-pad to snap back into tiles. Even the vertical areas don't feel all that analog in terms of geometry like in the hilly and uneven NNK picture, they can mostly be approximated to flat surfaces that are tilted. Given that they're using the same engine and how the terrain is I still expect there to be tile based movement.

 

[NeonZ]

Just by looking at some of the gameplay footage you see level design geometry that could easily be approximated to grids and tiles:

Nah, if they were using the grid for world design, the diagonal connections between these roads wouldn't be possible.

Almost every lower camera angle shot in X/Y looked really bad due to the grid binding the world structure. They aren't going with a very naturalistic world design, but it's clearly not a grid anymore.

 

[Easy_D]

Are you sure it's no longer possible to snap back into grid/lane based movement using the d-pad as in X/Y?

I mean the areas, paths and stuff are still relatively flat and rectangular in shape with hard lines separating background from the gameplay field. At least it appears that you could feasibly implement grid movement into Sun/Moon, whereas in games like Ni No Kuni it's impossible give the uneven nature of the terrain:



Just by looking at some of the gameplay footage you see level design geometry that could easily be approximated to grids and tiles:

Why does the ground texture look like they just used photoshop brushes.

 

[Spyder_Monkey]

Better performance, visuals, and battery life = gimping?

None of that will either happen or not make a huge difference

 

[ozfunghi]

Why everyone keeps talking about smartphones?

Because there are no recent portable game systems that can serve as reference.
Because phones share a lot of issues like heat, battery life, screen resolution vs performance. Because smartphones, due to form factor, have hardware most suited for a portable game system (CPU, GPU, touch screen, storage...) both being consumer devices.

 

[Astral Dog]

I believe with bigger screens came higher expectations from consumers regarding resolution, since the boom of the hd ready and full hd TVs, and the market reacted accordingly and expected more, hence higher resolution devices. Manufacturers simply could've not bothered to update the resolutions at all on these bigger screened devices and kept them to a 720p standard or less, however they didn't. Sure innovation does play a part, as you said, but I don't see a single manufacturer of mobile devices stick to a resolution and call it a day, resolutions are increasing across the board, both in low and end end devices, globally. If we consumers didn't want higher resolutions, the appeal would have plateaued by now. By all means manufacturers can spend the budget in increasing screen quality at the expense of res, but that doesn't sell devices, including consoles and pc's, buzzwords to do with ever increasing resolutions do, imho. Gaf loves its 4K TVs, they once loved 1080p TVs. We even see that in the iPhone 6 keynote, with phil Schiller extolling the virtues of the bigger higher resolution screens by using the benefits to sell to consumers. The reason why iPhone 6 sold so much was in part due to the screen size, yes of course, but that went in hand in hand with the res, they delivered to their consumers what there competitors were providing. The 6s sold less, Apple has had recently a quarter or two where they shipped/sold fewer iPhones overall, despite the new hardware.

Its a good bullet point, of course, but videogame systems have different priorities too, handheld has to upgrade image quality and graphics by a huge leap while keeping a decent (ish) battery life AND affordable price.

If resolution was above graphics the PS3 and 360 would have been abandoned, 3DS and Xbox ONE would be selling much, much worse than they are.

The most optimistic choice for Nintendo would be 720p, but 540 is "good enough" for a handheld hybrid.

 

[sfried]

Because there are no recent portable game systems that can serve as reference.
Because phones share a lot of issues like heat, battery life, screen resolution vs performance.

Hmm...

If it's true that Nvidia is supplying Nintendo with Tegra chips, and if its true they're supplying them with Tegra Pascal, why not compare it with the Nvidia Shield's display?

 

[James Scott]

I have a question. The rumored X1 is supposed to be around 2-3x Wii U in terms of power, is that really possible in handheld mode or is it more realistic to be when it's docked?
Seems a bit weird to get a handheld from Nintendo that can run PS360 games at 1080 60fps.
If the handheld can indeed run those games at 1080p 60fps, could going down to 540p produce noticeably better graphics?

 

[atbigelow]

Nobody is saying that there wouldn't be a power drain, but your acting like a 720p would be huge power drain. It's not. Chip efficiency and performance have gotten so good that it's better to render at that resolution to get more detail without really sacrificing performance or battery life. Smart devices and game developers have been working with higher resolutions for years now. The benefits of using a 720p screen easily outweighs using a 480p or 540p screen because every programmer worth their salt now has apps and games optimized for these resolutions. At best if say Nintendo wanted to port their new Fire Emblem mobile game, an app that runs that will run at native resolution on my iPhone 6, all they would do is render the app at 540p and that's it. No performance increases, no higher graphical fidelity. All you would get is a worst version of the game than on an iPhone 6 because of the lower resolution.

You may think 540p is better but it's not. You're actively wanting your device gimped for next to no benefits.

It is quite easy to scale assets from 1080p to 540p. You divide it by 2. That's why I said the OS could even facilitate with this because it's such a straight forward process. That's one of the primary reasons there's so much talk about it. 1080p scales down to 540p more easily than it does to 720p.

Oh, and nobody is really making 720p assets so your argument about mobile apps is a wash.


And the other stuff about the Note 4 screen taking less power than the Note 3. For one, those are optimized AMOLED panels. I don't think anyone is expecting an AMOLED in this, especially since we're expecting a free form Sharp display of some kind.

Second is that all those tech benefits to reduce power draw would help a 540p panel just the same.

Third is that they even make mention in that article linked earlier that they get these benefits by slowing the panel or accounting for static display areas. Only refreshing part of the panel would benefit HUDs and long-term graphical elements. But you cannot slow the panel's refresh rate down below 60hz; games need to be able to run at 60 FPS constantly.


There's no getting around the fact 720p is pushing more pixels. And I don't think it'd be worth it. 540p works better to scale down to from 1080p, which is the "true" resolution of the games docked (assuming).

 

[Elfforkusu]

I have a question. The rumored X1 is supposed to be around 2-3x Wii U in terms of power, is that really possible in handheld mode or is it more realistic to be when it's docked?
Seems a bit weird to get a handheld from Nintendo that can run PS360 games at 1080 60fps.
If the handheld can indeed run those games at 1080p 60fps, could going down to 540p produce noticeably better graphics?

Based on past history, the X1 dev kits are probably pretty representative of what the final portable will be able to do. Using Pascal will help, putting less in the chip + running at a lower clock (= only passive cooling?) will hurt.

540p seems the most probable outcome to me. But I'm a eGPU believer...

 

[Speely]

It is quite easy to scale assets from 1080p to 540p. You divide it by 2. That's why I said the OS could even facilitate with this because it's such a straight forward process. That's one of the primary reasons there's so much talk about it. 1080p scales down to 540p more easily than it does to 720p.

Oh, and nobody is really making 720p assets so your argument about mobile apps is a wash.


And the other stuff about the Note 4 screen taking less power than the Note 3. For one, those are optimized AMOLED panels. I don't think anyone is expecting an AMOLED in this, especially since we're expecting a free form Sharp display of some kind.

Second is that all those tech benefits to reduce power draw would help a 540p panel just the same.

Third is that they even make mention in that article linked earlier that they get these benefits by slowing the panel or accounting for static display areas. Only refreshing part of the panel would benefit HUDs and long-term graphical elements. But you cannot slow the panel's refresh rate down below 60hz; games need to be able to run at 60 FPS constantly.


There's no getting around the fact 720p is pushing more pixels. And I don't think it'd be worth it. 540p works better to scale down to from 1080p, which is the "true" resolution of the games docked (assuming).

This is really what I hope is happening. Develop at 1080p and cut it to 540p portable experience. It just makes so much sense for both a docked console experience and a portable experience. 1080p is fine as a ceiling and 540p is fine on a 5-6 inch screen when the assets are actually good. Plus, the power efficiency they could get out of a 540p display with a Pascal SoC... UNF.