Topic: The Nintendo Switch Rumor and Speculation Thread

@MarioBrickLayer

With the Tegra X1 SoC going (being?) out of production, Nvidia will have to come up with a software solution for backwards compatibility. It won't be as elegant as GBA to GBC, GBA to DS, or GC to Wii where Nintendo was able to just attach the previous hardware to new hardware and games being interchangeable.

@Magician If Nintendo placed an order for 25m chips, surely Nvidia would keep producing them!

@MarioBrickLayer Things like that are as never cost effective as it seems, they would have to be making chips in a separate batch to the others which means different layouts at the factories which is costly and then are those limited separate batches as profitable as the other meaning you're lowering your forecasted revenue if it's not.

It's like going to Maccie Ds to ask for something that's not on the menu even though the indigents to make it are there and they would be getting money, those resturants are built around effiencey of the kitchen to turn out food at a pace. If some food takes longer to took cook it mucks up everything.

@skywake

Not untrue. But prices on chips are going up, not down. TSMC themselves raised prices for the 16nm process by 20%. Just look at Sony, they passed the cost increase of the PS5 to their customers.

Let us be thankful Nintendo haven't done the same for their customers.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/worlds-largest-chip-maker-to-rai...

@Magician @MarioBrickLayer So basically a PS4 to PS5 style solution then?

(backwards compatibility segment starts around 27:00)

@Grumblevolcano

Yes.

But it would depend on if Nvidia can arrive at a similar solution for Switch as AMD did for Playstation.

@Fox-McCloud I'm not one for looking too closely for patterns with Nintendo. Besides, I'm of the notion the more I think it's far away, the sooner it will appear hahaha

@Magician
You know that last point kinda shot your argument a bit there didn't it. I did say that they could lower the price of the Switch and drop this new hardware in at a similar price point. Rather than going over and becoming close to as expensive as the PS5. And in normal times that would be relatively true, and I think somewhat still true given the chip price rises are slowing down

But with prices going up across the board? If they come in above the Switch OLED price but the PS5, XBox Series and every other hardware device is getting more expensive? They're still cost competitive. A rising tide raises all boats

It is a much simpler problem than you would think. As I understand it it's a driver and a precompiled shader in a package. Worst case it's a patch that would be on developers to release but it's not going to be anywhere near the level of porting. But if it's on developers you'd be left with patchy BC. However it's very possible it could also be something that could run on device on first boot, have Nintendo just run in bulk across all games for download or possibly even (with some overhead) run on the fly

In my mind I'm thinking Nintendo running something in bulk is probably what will happen, a quick download on first run. And to the user it would would also be likely that some games would get a tad more than just a patch to enable them to run in the same way. Especially first party games. I mean if I was Nintendo I would be wanting to push out a patch to make sure my flagship games would sell the system. So things like adding DLSS, "4K" texture packs, increasing framerate/resolution targets etc

Remember that Microsoft enabled "backwards compatibility" on a platform that was entirely alien to their previous hardware. PPC code does not run natively on x86, even remotely. And yet they still managed to "enable" 360 games to run on XBox One/XBox Series sometimes including 120fps, HDR, 4K. And they did this by...... basically porting the games and making them free downloads for previous owners. Nintendo won't have to get even remotely close to having to do that so the bar to clear is lower. And it's a good thing it's a low bar because Nintendo isn't particularly well known for being pro-consumer

@MarioBrickLayer I remember that MVG video, it was with Nate the Hate. IIRC, using a whole X1 wasn't the only hardware solution. The BC issue is focussed on drivers for the Maxwell GPU being packaged in each game (so not separate drivers like they are with Windows). So just including a Maxwell GPU in the new SoC was also an option MVG speculated about with Nate.

One other thing to consider - the Orin SoC design includes a lot of additional circuits to support automotive requirements. Those would not be included in any variant SoC (T239) for Nintendo, so they could replace some of that silicon with circuits to support BC (not necessarily a whole Maxwell GPU).

Backwards compatibility could be done easily if the architecture and instruction sets for the components (cpu, gpu, ect) are close enough. It may only require a translation/compatibility layer in software or hardware with slight Tweeks on a per game basis. There is even the possibility that no layer is needed at all.

Now adding enhancements to last gen software is another thing entirely.

@TSR3
IIRC it was not just the game specific driver but also pre-compiled shaders. But you know, pre-compiled shaders are not exactly a difficult thing to overcome. Also PC games have to deal with different graphics architectures and massively different graphical settings all the time. First time you boot up a lot of games on PC or if you change the GPU/change some settings you'll be hit with an additional loading bar where the game will "optimise". That'll usually include shader recompilation

Same deal with a lot of emulators of more modern consoles. The pre-compiled shaders on the disc/cartridge I would expect are just too much effort than its worth to get the emulator to support. So you'll just do the shader compilation on boot... or put up with potential in-game stuttering... or throw more horsepower at it....

But even if this isn't really much of an issue or an issue that can be solved without patches I still think there would be some patching going on. To unlock additional enhancements for key titles

@skywake Thanks for the info on pre-compiled shaders, I hadn’t heard much details about them before.

I’m pretty relaxed about backwards compatibility. I’m sure they’ll be able to get a large majority of the games supported day one, or shortly afterwards. And I think they’ll have budget for extra silicon on the wafers if needed. I’m expecting the next model to be marketed as some kind of Switch upgrade, even if under the hood it’ll seem more like a new model

Backwards compatibility imo is a given. I will be extremely surprised (and disappointed) if the new Switch is not backwards compatible.

As for the release date, I still believe it will launch alongside TotK and if not, definitely within 2023. 2024 or later feels like too far away considering they have finalised the hardware for a while now.

My Nintendo UK Store is down for maintenance?
What's going on?
Probably hacked like RockStar and 2K

I know why, but my uncle told me not to tell anyone.

@Bunkerneath Preparing for XC3 Special Edition preorders most likely.

Sorry can't remember how to embed facebook posts
On Farcebook they said:
https://www.facebook.com/MyNintendoStoreUK/posts/pfbid02SpWQF...

But you click on the link and it still shows under maintenance.

Also on Facebook, looks like you get a steel book for Rabbids:
https://www.facebook.com/MyNintendoStoreUK/photos/a.147545589...

But the site isnt working so you cant order it.
The whole site is a complete joke

I think it's a given it's just a pretty open ended question on what kind of backwards compatibility it could be. On the one extreme you have a completely transparent backwards compatibility that also opens up better performance for existing games with no additional effort. On the other extreme there's a partial library compatibility with games running no better than on the OG Switch with some kind of inconvenience attached, like screen resolution mis-match or an additional menu or additional charges for unlocking better performance

I think on that scale it'll probably be closer to the former, certainly closer than the Wii U/3DS were although maybe not as much as the Wii was. I'm kinda expecting it to be largely transparent and with some perks of the new hardware added. But I'm also going into it expecting there to be required patches to download/generate before you run the game. And knowing Nintendo I'm half expecting them to put a charge on "4K" patches for BC games. Possibly throwing it into NSO or something

September's nearly over, seems those rumours from a few months ago turned out to be fake.

@Grumblevolcano Which rumours in particular?