Topic: Nintendo Switch 2

@skywake Apparently it came from the Digital Foundry sheet. I thought it was official information, or at least youtubers covered it like it was.

@VoidofLight
Well, there’s our first problem. YouTubers.

They’ve been the biggest source of incorrect info ever since the reveal. And then we repeat it on forums like this, and before you know it people like @Quantumz00 are repeating it like it’s fact. This 3gb thing is all over Reddit now, too.

Same thing happened with game pricing and physical Switch 2 editions.

Anyways, I think the “omg you need NSO to chat” argument is pretty flimsy. Most people have NSO, and you only need the base tier of it after March of next year, which is what? 30 bucks a year? That’s like acting horrified that you need to pay for a data plan for you phone so you can… use Discord lol

Personally, it’s not a blow-me-away feature, but to just press a button and be able to chat (I’m not interested in the video with the camera, just the chat) is pretty nice. And in rare cases, a friend being able to show me their gameplay for help or to show me something cool is neat.

Is 9 of 12 GB RAM really going to be a bottleneck with this system? The closest comparitor people seem to mention is the Ps4 Pro, which was 9 GB total (and based on @skywake's post I guess 2 GB of that is for OS) so I'm not seeing the big issue here. Maybe it's that some more modern games are using a bit more RAM - but then is it not all the other hardware that is the issue?

Idk I only have a moderate knowledge when it comes to gaming hardware, maybe there's something I'm missing here. Is the CPU allocation more the issue?

Edit: apparently the Series S only uses 8 of 10 GB RAM as well?

@VoidofLight Nintendo never release this kind of information to the general public. It only goes out to developers, who are bound by confidentiality, so it's always going to be a case of getting it second hand.

Developers talk to journalists, on the understanding that names will not be mentioned, and that's how we get to know.

So yes, it's not official, but this is the same way that we've found out about the specs of all Nintendo consoles and, this close to release at least, it's unlikely to be very wrong.

@VoidofLight @rallydefault
To be clear I'm not saying here the 3GB RAM reserved for the OS isn't accurate or that DF is wrong. That figure appears to be correct and would make sense. What I'm disputing is that it's 3GB "for GameChat"

The Switch was very limited in what system applets it could run. These are the apps you can have open while running a game. The system menus is one, the eShop is another, the NSO menu is another. Presumably the new GameShare section on the Switch will be another. They're also fairly limited given there's only 800MB available. You could only have one of these system applets open at once which is why there's a loading screen for the eShop and other system applets

Yes, this additional RAM means they can do more complex tasks while running a game like GameChat or sharing to another device while running a game with GameShare. But in theory it also means they can do things like have the eShop loaded in the background, removing the loading screen entirely. Or have more than one applet open at once

Saying there's 3GB reserved for GameChat on Switch 2 is basically like saying there's 800MB reserved for the news app or the friends list on Switch. Or like saying Mario Kart World uses 9GB of RAM and doesn't let any other game use it. It's true...... but in the most meaningless and misleading way possible

I don’t know man. The optional camera and video feed stuff will be janky but i def think some are jumping to conclusions by saying that Gamechat will be awful.

If it’s easy to use like on other current consoles and audible it’ll be fine.

In all honesty I think people are being way too adamant to throw out judgements on this so quickly. It’s partially internet ‘culture’ but internet discourse has an incredibly hyperbolic approach to things. Where people are very quick to explode on hot topics. I can’t help but think that’s it’s better to just wait and see how things turn out when it’s just a hobby and one has time.

Sigh...

The 3GB RAM is for the entire OS, the much more fluid, frictionless eShop that yes, will hog tons of RAM to ensure everything loads instantly, your game library icons loading instantly unlike on Switch, not to mention features like GameShare, GameChat (whether you personally use it or not, having integrated voice chat on the system is something people have been demanding for literal generations).

All of that combined is getting 3GB.

But make no mistake. If they didn't include video sharing, it wouldn't just mean more RAM for games. It would simply mean less total RAM. Instead of 12GB they would have probably included 11GB or even just 10GB, devoted 2GB to OS and devoted 8GB to games, making it even worse then where it's at now.

People always have these attitudes where, jf this one feature I personally don't like just wasn't there, everything would be right rainbows and puppies. First of all, the universe isn't centered around you- there are plenty of people who will use these features. Secondly, if nobody used them and they omitted the feature, they wouldn't just devote more resources to games. They would simply save money by including less RAM total. And don't think that would mean a lower price, not for a second lol.

That's how they make these decisions. They say, okay, we want at least 8 GB devoted to games, and then how much do we need to add on top of that, for all of the system stuff we're going to be doing. Less system stuff means less additional RAM for system stuff, not more RAM for games.

Anyways.

I made a graph showing why Switch 2 is the tipping point for a paradigm shift in console gaming.

@skywake
I know. I’m saying the whole “3gb for game chat” is straight up false. It’s 3gb for the whole OS, like @JaxonH just showed.

As long as they look to decrease that ram over time and give developers the option to not use game chat for their games it will be fine.

Jaxon I love you but if youre making calculus graphs to express the simple idea about diminishing returns and your theory all this extra power won't really matter after a certain point then maybe its time to play some more Mario kart

All kidding aside, there will come a time when we don't need this extra RAM, but today is not that day. Many games will be a tough haul to put on Switch 2 for this reason alone, even though I think it'll do much better than Switch 1 ever did in that regard. But the whole point about not every feature needing to be for me and the world not revolving around us or whatever... well the same goes for every topic?

Whether you express your like or dislike for something, it does not invalidate someone's oppositely held position. If people didn't express what they liked and didn't like on this message board, the forum would either be so boring nobody would post here or it would disappear in a week. It is perfectly valid for someone to believe a feature is a waste of resources better spent elsewhere and to express that opinion. It will be OK imo.

Earlier this year, a friend who owns Pokémon Violet helped me out and I was able to capture the exclusives Paradox Pokémon.
This task requires constant communication (players can't see each other in Area Zero).
I used Discord on my phone and it wasn't very practical, if this was a native function of the system, it would have been much better (hell, even Pokémon X and Y had voice communication).
So yes, Gamechat is a very welcome feature and I'll be using it a lot.
Playing online while chatting with your friends is really cool. It would be great for playing Gears of War: Reloaded coop on the Switch 2. Come on, Microsoft.

I largely just encourage that people be ‘grounded’ in reality. The Internet’s anonymity and overstimulation (from countless points of view and endless news) encourages people to be super hyperbolic on how they present their views.

It’s fair to discuss that you do or don’t like a certain feature but we all know how that can be on the internet. Whether here on Reddit or whatever other site.

@Quantumz00
My point is, the amount of ram devoted to games is a decision made independently of the amount of ram devoted to the system. My point is that even if they use less ram for system os tasks, it would not mean more ram for games.

And 9GB RAM for games is a LOT of RAM. A TRUCKLOAD. Even PS5/XSX has 16GB. Know how much PS5 devotes to games? 12.5GB. Only 3.5GB more than this 10W portable tablet which, might I remind you, is it about a generation behind in power? And thus won't need as much ram, because the AAA games it runs aren't all going to be using 4K assets.

So one could actually argue RAM is a bigger bottleneck on the PS5 than it will be on the NSW2.

Heck. Series S only has 10GB RAM with 2GB for OS leaving 8GB for games! NSW2 has 12.5% more RAM than a current gen home console!

When you hear developers, come out and say that it's an issue, then we can say it's an issue. But thus far, the only thing we've heard from developers is that it's exceeded their expectations and made development incredibly easy.

@JaxonH Honestly, I feel like you could just lead with the XBSS point and that alone wins the argument. The rest is just frosting.

And to add, 8 gb of ram is still the medium bar when it comes to most PC games. Like, a pc that has 8gb ram total.

So just mull that over for a bit.

@rallydefault
Remember that consoles have a unified memory architecture so that RAM is for both CPU and GPU. Also on a PC the main reason you want more RAM is to run additional applications which is not an issue consoles really face

If we want to drag Switch 2 into PC comparisons on RAM it would be more accurate to say that it would be like having a PC with 3GB reserved for Windows. A more restrictive version of windows that maybe only let's you have one or two programs open at once. But an OS that lets you run one game in its own entirely seperate pool of RAM. Of which you have 10GB you can split between the GPU and CPU

So the closer analogy would be something like.... a PC with 4GB RAM and an 8GB GPU. Or something. And Switch would've been more like 2GB and 2GB. It's slightly more complicated than this because you don't have to have copies of assets in both pools, which is a big efficiency gain, but broadly that's what we're talking about here

@skywake
Ah, pretty different in how the cpu and gpu interact.

Jaxon, Series S has been an unambiguous disaster for developers. Talk about complaining, do you want me to list all the developers who have complained about series S power constraints? That is not the system you want to be propping up given that dozens of developers have complained about what an albatross it is, and Switch 2 is substantially weaker!

And let me be clear here: Switch 2 is less powerful than a Series S by a considerable degree. This isnt even debatable now that we have the chip break downs. The more modern feature set is not going to be able to fully compensate for the large power gap between them.

Your concept that we should wait til a chorus of developers start complaining is a unicorn for obvious reasons, and it is not going to happen right away. As we know, Switch 2 development kits havent even been in the hands of many developers for long. If we are going to hear complaints like we do about Series S, we have to give it time: it is a rare developers who would risk their relationship with Nintendo by bitching about the specs before it is even launched. That'd bring negative buzz to the platform and thus Nintendo might retaliate as that have done in the past. Heck, Nintendo has legit banned certain publications from receiving any more pre release copies of their games over certain negative reviews. Do you know how unethical that is? So there is reason we would not obviously hear developers complaining just yet. Give it time the grapevine is real.

I really don't think the RAM is going to be much of an issue. I can't really imagine an instance where it is the bottleneck. The CPU and the GPU will probably be what causes that.

@Quantumz00
Switch 2 has more RAM and more advanced features than Series S and is also a portable console. I don't think what you're saying here really applies