Nintendo Switch (Nintendo's next console)

earthwormjack

Wii U is 176gflops from what I remember. I'll try find the link again.

Creamy Goodness

Can't wait until Zelda drops some single digit frame numbers so that I can exclaim "sigh, I wish this thing had more gigaflops".

You see the same thing in Android vs. Apple fanboy circles. My Samsung phone has 6gb ram and your iPhone only has 2gb, therefore my Samsung is better lolz!!!!11. When you actually look at gaming/performance benchmarks the iPhone wins out.

Star Lord

sligeach wrote: »

These are supposedly the raw performance numbers of the Switch:

Undocked: 375 GFLOPs
Docked: 876 GFLOPs

Compared to others:

PS4: 1,840 GFLOPs
Xbone: 1,230 GFLOPs
Wii U: 352 GFLOPs

So the Switch undocked is barely more powerful than the Wii U. Whether these numbers are 100% accurate is another story.

While gigaFLOPS aren't a complete/comprehensive method of measuring power, they're reasonably good. Over twice the floating point operations per second of the Wii U, in that tiny profile when docked is pretty damn impressive. Having more than the Wii U even when undocked/portable is pretty amazing too, IMHO.

earthwormjack

This time around it's also nVidia flops vs AMD flops, which aren't measured the same either.

Andrew76

Banjo wrote: »

So it's a Wii U but in your pocket.

What mighty big pockets you have! I'm picturing MC Hammer trousers, strutting your stuff down the street like a proud member of Team Skull from Pokemon Sun. The poor daughters walking 20 paces back, mortified. :pac:

Whatever about GFLOP comparisons, mine will be staying docked 95% of the time so as long as the games are good and run well on the big screen, that's good enough for me.

sligeach

Yes it's amazing performance for a handheld. But looking at it from a console perspective, not only is it weak compared to the competition but it looks like it can only use that extra grunt for a bump in resolution or framerate because it also has to perform undocked.

Maybe we might get a few games at some point that only play while docked to really make use of the extra horsepower? Or am I looking at it wrong?

marcbrophy

Andrew76 wrote: »

What mighty big pockets you have! I'm picturing MC Hammer trousers, strutting your stuff down the street like a proud member of Team Skull from Pokemon Sun. The poor daughters walking 20 paces back, mortified. :pac:

Whatever about GFLOP comparisons, mine will be staying docked 95% of the time so as long as the games are good and run well on the big screen, that's good enough for me.

I can fit my nexus 7 into most jeans pockets that I own.
The switch is smaller than that, minus the ears, I mean controllers :P

wes

sligeach wrote: »

Yes it's amazing performance for a handheld. But looking at it from a console perspective, not only is it weak compared to the competition but it looks like it can only use that extra grunt for a bump in resolution or framerate because it also has to perform undocked.

Maybe we might get a few games at some point that only play while docked to really make use of the extra horsepower? Or am I looking at it wrong?

Think of it as a PC game running at low or high settings. The mobile version will make compromises, for battery life and heat.

Andrew76

sligeach wrote: »

Yes it's amazing performance for a handheld. But looking at it from a console perspective, not only is it weak compared to the competition but it looks like it can only use that extra grunt for a bump in resolution or framerate because it also has to perform undocked.

Maybe we might get a few games at some point that only play while docked to really make use of the extra horsepower? Or am I looking at it wrong?

Didn't DF say that the dock basically unlocks the full potential because the Switch will be running off mains power and there'll be no worry about overheating or draining the battery? Thought I read that somewhere.

I'm guessing it would be easy for a developer to know when it's docked or not and could technically stop you from playing undocked - doubt they would do that though as they'd be limiting their potential audience.

earthwormjack

I don't think Nintendo will allow for docked games only. It would be nice for some games to give extra power to make something great, but I don't think Nintendo want consumers to become confused about which games they can/can't take on the go.

The average consumer seems to become confused quite easily!

sligeach

1-2-Switch - Play anytime, anywhere, with anyone (Nintendo Switch)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9itvWmzN-k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9itvWmzN-k

readyletsgo

sligeach wrote: »

These are supposedly the raw performance numbers of the Switch:

Undocked: 375 GFLOPs
Docked: 876 GFLOPs

Compared to others:

PS4: 1,840 GFLOPs
Xbone: 1,230 GFLOPs
Wii U: 352 GFLOPs

So the Switch undocked is barely more powerful than the Wii U. Whether these numbers are 100% accurate is another story.

A handheld that is as strong ('gflops' wise) as the WiiU? That's pretty amazing to me!

RasTa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA8xrgLqQZ8

WeleaseWoderick

earthwormjack wrote: »

I don't think Nintendo will allow for docked games only. It would be nice for some games to give extra power to make something great, but I don't think Nintendo want consumers to become confused about which games they can/can't take on the go.

The average consumer seems to become confused quite easily!

I remember before the Switch was announced and there were rumours of a hybrid system, some people were suggesting that the game would change completely when it portable mode i.e. go from full 3D in Zelda to say a LTTP style instead.

Retr0gamer

Andrew76 wrote: »

Didn't DF say that the dock basically unlocks the full potential because the Switch will be running off mains power and there'll be no worry about overheating or draining the battery? Thought I read that somewhere.

I'm guessing it would be easy for a developer to know when it's docked or not and could technically stop you from playing undocked - doubt they would do that though as they'd be limiting their potential audience.

The Dock only gives you a bump in resolution it seems. Undocked you get 720p, docked you get higher res, proabably aiming for 1080p but maybe 900p for the likes of Zelda. I'd say Nintendo will be very cagey and keep performance on par between docked and undocked. I'd say performance undocked might even theoretically be better than docked as 900p and 1080p is a massive step up in terms of pixel count over 720p.

CiDeRmAn

Doesn't the flops and the like only work as a comparison with systems with similar architecture, which doesn't really work then for the Switch compared with the other current systems?
And the PC with a bottomless pit of resources still failed to run Arkham Knight properly, which had more to do with coding rather than horsepower.

deadl0ck

Could be totally out of the hands of the developers - it depends on what Nintendo have exposed to them through the APIs.
Could be that the developers code a single game, and the underlying Switch OS will scale up or down graphics etc as needed.

Digital Solitude

sligeach wrote: »

These are supposedly the raw performance numbers of the Switch:

Undocked: 375 GFLOPs
Docked: 876 GFLOPs

Compared to others:

PS4: 1,840 GFLOPs
Xbone: 1,230 GFLOPs
Wii U: 352 GFLOPs

So the Switch undocked is barely more powerful than the Wii U. Whether these numbers are 100% accurate is another story.

That's disappointing from a power perspective undocked, no doubt it'll still perform 100% anyways, as the WiiU has no performance issues from what I know.

Hopefully when docked they'll be able to use the bigger muscles to give us 60fps, I'd take 720p60 over 1080p30. They might even give us 50hz games.

I doubt they'll limit some games into being docked only, if they want to get back into the console game seriously then freezing out part of your userbase is ridiculous.

876gf isn't too bad, it's about 80% of the Xbox. There's over twice the gap between PS4 and XBOX than that of Xbox and Switch so it hopefully, hopefully won't have devs complaining it's too underpowered to port games to.

I must admit I was hoping for a 1TF figure and I'm disappointed that the Switch has fallen short, not for my own standards but it will surely be used as a stick to beat it with.

Creamy Goodness wrote: »

You see the same thing in Android vs. Apple fanboy circles. My Samsung phone has 6gb ram and your iPhone only has 2gb, therefore my Samsung is better lolz!!!!11. When you actually look at gaming/performance benchmarks the iPhone wins out.

I'm pretty sure android can't even use 6gb RAM properly, it's so utterly stupid in a phone, mainly dickswinging by people who don't know what they're buying.

Digital Solitude

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Doesn't the flops and the like only work as a comparison with systems with similar architecture, which doesn't really work then for the Switch compared with the other current systems?
And the PC with a bottomless pit of resources still failed to run Arkham Knight properly, which had more to do with coding rather than horsepower.

Absolutely, port quality is much more important than system power. I recall someone saying that Arkham Knight is technically one of the most demanding PC games out there, despite being far from a technical or graphical marvel, simply because the coding was so bad.

Creamy Goodness

Digital Solitude wrote: »

I'm pretty sure android can't even use 6gb RAM properly, it's so utterly stupid in a phone, mainly dickswinging by people who don't know what they're buying.

Yup but my point was: I've played great games on both Android/iOS and that specs aren't everything.

Digital Solitude

Creamy Goodness wrote: »

Yup but my point was: I've played great games on both Android/iOS and that specs aren't everything.

Wasn't disputing you, just enjoy pointing out the sillyness of 6gb RAM.

fixXxer

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Wasn't disputing you, just enjoy pointing out the sillyness of 6gb RAM.

Android will use 6gb of RAM quite happily but its all put towards having apps in cache so they don't have to be reloaded after you switch out and back in again.

Digital Solitude

fixxxer wrote: »

Android will use 6gb of RAM quite happily but its all put towards having apps in cache so they don't have to be reloaded after you switch out and back in again.

Ah I misunderstood then so, pretty useless for the most part.

Regardless.

10 days until Switchmas

That_Guy

As long as the Switch can perform when I want it to, I don't care how floppy it is... :pac:

Retr0gamer

People also have to remember that Nintendo report figures for actual measured scenarios for their machines whereas Sony and MS report theoretical figures. Also a lot of BS going on with these figures, during the PS2 era Sony and MS were reporting ridiculous spec figures for the PS2 and Xbox that far eclipsed the Gamecube figures Nintendo reported which was arse considering the Gamecube was a far more capable machine than the PS2.

Take them with a pinch of salt, even digital foundry have commented on the inaccuracy of using FLOPS as a measurement of a processors power.

Retr0gamer

Digital Solitude wrote: »

They might even give us 50hz games.

Dear god are you crazy? We better not go back to that ****e again. That should have been eradicated when the Dreamcast launched in 1999 here but we still saw it on the PS2 and Wii.

Retr0gamer

One other thing to consider about these so called GFLOP figures is that the Tegra is an ARM processor. The PS4 and One run on x-86 processors. ARM processors being reduced instruction processors can run incredibly fast at much lower clock speeds while the x86 hardware is very inefficient. They just aren't comparable in the same way. GPU I'd say they are a bit more comparable and probably based around similar architecture.

Digital Solitude

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Dear god are you crazy? We better not go back to that ****e again. That should have been eradicated when the Dreamcast launched in 1999 here but we still saw it on the PS2 and Wii.

Ah I was only trying to pull a reaction out of you

CiDeRmAn

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Ah I was only trying to pull a reaction out of you

I hear they are porting a HD version of The Legend of Dragoon to the Switch.
They are improving the visuals but preserving the excellent narrative and gameplay....

(If you have to troll Retr0, put your back into it!)

druss

My local emailed me to say I won't be having a midnight Switchmas. :mad: