Hey, I wonder if the screen will fold. A bigger screen certainly moves away from a device that fits in your pocket. The Switch did, just (depending on your pockets of course) but if it folds up, then I imagine the Pokemon company would be happier (I mean, they literally built up a billion dollar franchise on the bak of 'pocket monsters.' I'm still convinced the Lite was more to appease them than provide a cheaper entry etc etc (whatever that nonsense means lol.)
@GrailUK Nintendo have been releasing hardware models more suitable for pockets close to the 1st Pokemon generation that's exclusive to the hardware that's getting the new model since the beginning. GB Pocket released close to Pokemon Gen 1, GBA SP released close to Pokemon Gen 3, DS Lite released close to Pokemon Gen 4 and Switch Lite released close to Pokemon Gen 8.
3DS is an odd one in the sense that while outside Japan the 2DS did release close to Pokemon Gen 6, the 2DS is less suitable for pockets than the original 3DS.
The pattern seems clear such that's it's a safe prediction that if Gen 10 doesn't come to the current Switch, there'll be an equivalent to the Switch Lite releasing for the Switch's successor around then.
@GrailUK As anything power upscale Switch will become bigger Hybrid Console it doesn't go backward. For a Power Switch there comes a cost and it's not going to be pocket Switch with it's upscale hardware. Why anyone would put a Switch into pockets is beyond anyone imagination. It wasn't meant for skinny pants nor is it to switched that way. it's not like a smooth faced Smartphone that doesn't have anything to catch or smashed down on. So the imagination is there it's not a Pocket Switch by any stretch of the imagination.
@SwitchForce Beyond YOUR imagination, or at least your trousers! It's been in my pants from time to time simply because I was using it. Granted, they had big comfy pockets ^^
@SwitchForce
You always have the worst takes. As processes get more efficient power consumption goes down, not up. We know a lot about the T239 but don't know how big the power draw will be. We don't know what they'll clock it at, we don't know what process it will be built on. These things matter and will likely change through the life of the console. For example the launch Switch SoC consumes 30% more power than the 2019/Lite/OLED revision. Realistically it's probably not consuming that much more power than the OG Switch if at all
If you're going for a truly pocketable handheld? You've potentially even got some more easy wins. For example one would assume the screen resolution would drop. If you have a 2-3" screen then 480p is probably fine. A smaller screen would need less power to drive which would allow even lower clocks. You could probably even disable the Tensor Cores. Less power, smaller battery, smaller cooler and you've just shrunk the two biggest space hogs in the console
And if that isn't enough? Nothing says a pocketable device has to be the same thickness. You could easily make something twice as thick for "ergonomics" and then just use that space for the battery. Gameboy Colour says hi. Not saying it would be easy to jam it all in there but, not impossible
And as far as "sticky out bits" go? Really? You do realise that the 3DS existed right? And the PSP, and the Vita? Also stuff like the Anbernic rg353v exist and have crammed two analogue sticks into something the size of a GameBoy Colour. This isn't an insurmountable problem
To be clear, I don't think v1 is that, I don't think we see it on day 1. But I think you're foolish to just dismiss the suggestion off hand
Bout to blow the lid off this T234 vs t239 size conundrum for you but first I need to know where you are at so I know how to say it and how much I need to explain.
Do you know specific verbiage for Nvidia hardware? Like in particular what a GPC is, and can you identify a GPC on a block diagram? On a die shot? (Their organization can get weird).
@Fullstack
I'm a software guy so the honest answer to those questions would be yes and then no. And to be honest I live high up enough in the stack that my yes to the first is like, Wikipedia and first year UNI CS tier understandings
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@Fullstack
Just to be clear, my post on the top of the page was being deliberately hyperbolic. I was using the physical size of the T234 to highlight how even if it was that large (it'll be much smaller) the physical size of the SoC isn't an issue. The issue is how much power a SoC of that size would draw
........ although looking at that post it seems as though I accidentally a 4 for a 9. Silly names, bigger number should be bigger
The Eurogamer/DF article above talks about the T239 & T234. We don't know the die size, mostly because we don't know what process they'll be using, but the T239 is 455mm^2 (should have said T234) which is kinda huge as far as dies go. But 455mm^2 is also physically just 2cm x 2cm. Even that would physically fit into the Switch's current size. But a die that size would be expensive, power hungry and difficult to cool. So again, thermals, price, power. These are the reasons why they talk about the Switch 2's SoC being smaller (but here I talk about Switch 2 being smaller, it's clear I knew T239 will be smaller)
So yes, 100%, we can't take the T239 size at 8nm and assume that'll be the die size of the SoC in Switch 2. It will be significantly smaller, maybe half the size. But my point in that post was more along the lines of even if it WAS that large, it isn't but if it was it'd physically fit. There would be issues with thermals, battery and cost and those reasons are why the die size matters. But it'd fit
Going to an 8" screen .... wouldn't solve the issues you'd have with a die that's 455mm^2....
@Fullstack
Yeah, if we didn't know anything about the SoC the guess would be that they'd land at somewhere around a 15W part with a die size somewhere around 150mm². Because that's just generally the kind of space these things land because of cost/thermals/power
Given the T234 is as large as it is, even if they cut the size of the GPU portion in half and trim back the CPU it'd still be fairly large I'd think. Just basic maths on that. So I can see why DF has said it would make sense that they would also remove the additional MLA. To make the die a more manageable size for what's going to be a relatively thin, battery powered, ~$400US product.
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@Fullstack
It's a custom SoC, it can have whatever it wants. I mean it supposedly has AV1 encoding despite being Ampere. It also has hardware accelerated file decompression which is not something on other Tegra SoCs or Consumer GPUs. I mean, this thing is an entirely custom SoC. Nothing about it is off the shelf. Theoretically it could have anything
It's a question of cost/thermals/power vs how much that additional stuff gives you. It could have additional hardware acceleration for AI tasks, giving some additional TOPS ontop of the ones you get from the Tensor cores in Ampere. Which could in theory have been used for pushing stuff like DLSS further. But there's a practical limit to how big the die can be for a device like this so... makes sense to drop it
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Topic: The Nintendo Switch Rumor and Speculation Thread
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