Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

If Nintendo are planning on boosting performance on TV via DLSS or FSR then does the next Switch need a dock?

@Colonel_Mustache a dongle in the TV or something? (I have no idea, I was just wondering.) I dunno, I suppose it still needs a charging cradle thing.

@Colonel_Mustache Good ol' Skywake. Mr Bowser knows more than I do

@Giancarlothomaz
No, 1080p handheld is not a given. Handheld will be 720p, just like Switch and Steamdeck. It's hard enough squeezing battery life out at 720p. You think they're gonna do 1080p??? Not a chance.

But yes, I mentioned I think they'll leverage DLSS for higher resolutions. But the base resolution rendered will be 1080p

be careful when playing Pokemon Scarlet/Violet, if you do this, it can corrupt your save life permently

@JaxonH even if the next Nintendo hardware have a OLED display? that disapointing

@Giancarlothomaz
It's not disappointing. It's expected. And even if it wasn't expected, it's still not disappointing because it provides little to no benefit on a screen that size. In fact, it would be disappointing if it was 1080p as that would mean we're essentially flushing half our battery life down the toilet for a 2-5% gain in visual sharpness. That's a horrible tradeoff.

As has been explained many times, handheld gaming systems are extremely difficult to tune with regard to having enough power to run the game with decent visuals and fidelity, having a high enough resolution so it looks sharp, maintaining performance and extending battery life as long as possible.

On a 7" screen, OLED or not, 720p has a high enough pixel density that improvements beyond that are essentially flushing gains down the toilet.. just flushing them down the toilet. Gains that could have been used to increase framerate to 60fps, or ensure battery life is longer than just 120 minutes. The perceived improvement of 1080p over 720p on a 7" screen is negligible at best, while the battery life that would need to be sacrificed to attain it would be in the 30-50% range.

You don't go sacrificing 30-50% battery life for 2-5% more sharpness. I doubt very many (if any at all) would make that tradeoff. There's a reason Steamdeck is also 720p. It's the perfect sweet spot for 7" handheld resolution.

@JaxonH i see,

Gamefreak, Gamefreak, Gamefreak.

Myself not a pokemon player but danget guys and gals ! I would be salty for spending 120 dollars on that mess.

100% agree with this but I would add an additional way in which they could use these gains. I would argue that the ideal portable gaming device screen would be around the 5-7" range, 720p, OLED. But I would also want said screen to be a relatively high refresh rate, 90Hz would be good start

But then additionally the ideal screen would also be a VRR screen with a range that goes down to ~20Hz. That way you could have a lower clocked portable mode that maybe causes some games to struggle to hit 60fps and maybe dip into the mid 20s. But because the screen waits for the display? The frame timings would still feel relatively smooth despite the game not hitting its targets

I'd take any of HDR, high contrast, VRR, high refresh rate or solid battery life over 1080p for a portable. Without any hesitation. If it has all of those things? Well then we can talk about 1080p

I guess I better explain it then

It basically comes down to two things, bandwidth and screen size. The dock as it stands is basically just a glorified a Display Port (I forget the revision) to HDMI 1.4 dongle. HDMI 1.4 is has ~8Gbps of usable bandwidth. That's enough for uncompressed 4K @ 30Hz or 1080p @ 120Hz. Probably a revised dock would be HDMI 2.1 which is ~40Gbps for 1080p @ 500Hz, 4K @ 120Hz or 8K @ 30Hz. Because you're basically hooking up the panel to the raw digital output? There's (effectively) zero latency and (generally) no compression

If you were to do this wirelessly? You'd have significantly less bandwidth to play with. As it stands the highest spec WiFi (WiFi 6e) has just recently broken the 1Gbps barrier, sitting at ~1.5Gbps for a single client in fairly ideal conditions. Which is a LOT of bandwidth but well short of even HDMI 1.4, so you'd need compression. Now you can still get a great image within that cap, BluRays are only ~30Mbps for example, but any compression adds latency which is fine for a game stream but not so great for playing games. Could burn through pages on this point but lets move on

The Wii U worked because you were streaming to a 6.2" 480p screen from a device plugged into mains. Admittedly it was 10 years ago now and compression, compute and WiFi have all advanced since then. But even so, a "reverse Wii U" would basically be asking a mobile, battery powered device to stream to a large TV that's potentially also high refresh rate, 4K and HDR. Probably better to plug the TV directly into HDMI, allowing you to actually use things like DLSS to push it further and have portable play untethered I would think

With that said.... Nintendo could literally release software right now on existing Switch hardware that allows a second Switch to be used like a Wii U GamePad. Or alternatively create an accessory that behaves in that way. In some sense they technically kinda already did it with Mario Kart Live

@skywake
VRR is crucial. But Idk if Nintendo would pay for a VRR screen. It would be much more expensive, and they'll be trying to keep costs down since the newer chip is already expensive. I hear VRR doesn't work well with lower framerates though. And while I'd certainly be in favor of a higher Hz screen, I don't expect that to happen. Again, costs vs return. It would be very unlikely to make any difference in overall demand, and unless price is increased to compensate, would decrease profits. And increased price would impact demand, also lessening revenue and thus profits.

VRR though, that could legitimately impact demand. If games don't have framerate issues thanks to a VRR screen, that could definitely help increase sales. Question is, how much would it cost them to go with a VRR screen (if even SteamDeck opted not to go with VRR, then I expect it's priced out of consideration for Nintendo as well).

I just finished Metroid Prime Remastered at 100% completion (items and scans). I do wish they added a brightness option as some areas were too dark compared to the same areas in the other versions (GC/Wii) and some kind of indicator of 100% completion in each area like they did with Dread but apart from that, it was a wonderful experience returning to Metroid Prime with this remaster.

It'll be interesting to see if you get the Fusion Suit in Prime Remastered for completing the NSO version of Metroid Fusion.

Are you... mad at me for buying Violet?

It may not look like polish outside, but what matters to me is finishing the story, like always. And catching every legendary in one version.

@TheBigBlue Game Freak have to develop the mainline Pokemon games under a tigh deadline, they dont have the luxury of a Legend of Zelda that can spent 5/6 years working to become a masterpiece, same with 3D Mario and 2D mainline Metroid/Metroid Prime, even if gen 10 games feature have ambitious games and require 4/5 years of development, Game Freak cant spent the adequate amount of time needed to polish the game, become they need to release the game before the next season of the Anipoke and the next batch of merchandish.

Are there any joy-con that effectively mimic the feel of the Pro Controller?

I've tried the Hori Split Pad Pro...but they just felt like bigger joy-con (my hands aren't particularly big) and had quite a cheap feel to them. They also weren't particularly ergonomic - the grips were too shallow to be worthwhile, really.

I then tried the Skull and Co NeoGrip and that was no use either. The grips don't combine well with the small buttons of the official joy-con, and using the "d-pad" with the grips on felt awkward.

The Pro Controller feels so good to me...it's just spoiled me for other controllers, really. Is there anything on the market that does well to mimic it? I'm not too fussed about rumble and motion tbh --- I'm just after something that can't help save my hands/wrists during handheld play sessions.

@JaxonH
Surely VRR isn't a huge expense, especially if you're teaming up with Nvidia for the SoC. VRR is basically the standard in gaming monitors and even TVs these days, it's no longer a high end feature. And in terms of 90Hz+ screens, I have a 90Hz OLED screen in my mid-range phone that I got for about the same price as the regular Switch, not the OLED. So I'm not sure it's that out of reach

As a side note, higher refresh rates are about more than just running at a higher frame rate. It also give you more frame rates to play with without tearing. 60Hz divides into 30, 20 and 15 evenly before you get into useless territory. 90Hz goes into 45, 30, 22.5, 18, 15. 120Hz has 60, 40, 30, 24, 20, 17.1, 15. The higher the refresh rate is the more VSync at those lower frame rates behaves like VRR

Also yes, VRR at the 20-60Hz range is kinda the main point of VRR. VRR is marketed as a high end feature because they wanted to excite the early adopters when it was an expensive feature. But really, if you have a high end rig you can reach the frame rate your monitor expects. VRR is for when your monitor is waiting for your GPU to finish work. Which is what makes it best suited to lower powered devices, like a portable console

@skywake
At lower framerates its very noticeable due to the relatively long persistence of frames. It'll technically work but most users report it not feeling smooth.

I share your view on the advantages of higher refresh rates, but the point is, it's still extra cost. Even $5 more per panel (and I suspect it's more than that), when talking about 100,000,000 panels is a half BILLION dollar hit. Is the additional sales they would make enough to counter that? I seriously doubt it. Running games at odd framerates like 45 is not something that would be a selling point to the majority of potential customers. Not only that, but assuming they had VRR with a screen that also did 40Hz, they could simply use that rather than pay another half billion to run at even more odd framerates.

That's the sort of thing you see in the PC market, not Nintendo hardware. If even Steamdeck, made by the PC market leader isn't doing it, how likely is it do you think Nintendo would?

I'm not saying it couldn't be advantageous to us, I'm just saying it's not gonna happen.

Whenever we have any "event tourneys" in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (which is every couple weeks), I get too anxious to join because everyone else online is just too good. Now I've even developed a fear of running into any Kirby players online because of that dreaded "Kirbycide" that I can't escape from.