FFXIV FOR THE NINTENDO SWITCH

[Kosmos992k]

I've claimed nothing except information that has surfaced stating the Switch's processing power being on par with the PS4 PRO - you decided to attack me and tell me to get real then proceeded to spend what amounted to an hour at least trying to beat your opinion into everyone's head in here. I think you have issues you need to go work out.

OK, I'm tired of this, so here are some facts that you can't argue with or dismiss. All the goodwill in the world won't change these, and in pure technology terms you can't argue around them either. No doubt you'll dismiss is all anyway, but at least I tried.

Nintendo Switch is almost 100% certain to use an nVidia Tegra X2 System on a Chip (SoC) design - like the nVidia Tegra X1 based Shield tablet already does.

Here is the good news The Tegra X2 uses the same GPU core architecture as the top tier nVidia graphics cards, however it has a lower clock speed and has far fewer GPU cores.

Talking of GPU cores, let's take a look at the PS4 & PS4 Pro (I'll also make mention of the Xbox One). The PS4Pro has the latest and greatest AMD GPU architecture (Polaris 10/11) - which is roughly equivalent to the Pascal architecture in X2. PS4 uses an earlier GCN design from AMD and has 18 Compute units with 64 cores a piece for 1,152 'cores' giving about 1.84 TFLOPs (@800MHz). The PS4Pro by contrast has twice that number - 36 Compute Units with 64 cores per unit, for 2304 'cores' giving 4.2TFLOPs (@911MHz).

Let's talk nVidia the Tegra X2 GPU has 256 cores, a full bore GTX1080 has 2560 cores, that's 10 times the number, and has a much higher base clock speed than the X2 can manage. In short, the X2 inside the Switch has less than a tenth of the power of a GTX1080 GPU.

The GTX1080 peaks at about 9 TFLOPS (@1.6GHz). So your Nintendo Switch with about 1/10 of the cores will hit about 900 GFLOPs, but we know it will clock lower, dropping performance closer to 750 GFLOPS - which is the actual projected rating of the Tegra X2 for Floating Point math. This is not PS4 Pro beating, and it's not really on par with the original PS4 which has 1.84 TFLOPS performance (Xbox One has about 1.3TFLOPs).

Incidentally, the data bus in the Tegra X2 is only 128 bits wide which is half that of the PS4/PS4Pro resulting in much lower memory bandwidth on the X2 vs the APUs in Xbox One, PS4 and PS4 Pro.

So, let's review.

Theoretical max GPU performance;

Switch 750 GFLOPS (0.75 TFLOP)
Xbox One 1.3 TFLOPS
PS4 1.84 TFLOPS
PS4PRO 4.2TFLOPS

Switch data bus = 128bit
XBox One/PS4/PS4PRO = 256 bit

Hey, you know the good news? Nintendo switch based on Tegra X2 is more powerful than a PS3.

I can get deeper into the hardware if you want, but it will bore the pants off everyone here if we do.

OK, being serious for a moment. For a hand held device, Nintendo Switch will be a very good device. I didn't grab the Vita performance specs, but I don't need to, Switch wipes the floor with it. Nintendo Switch is comfortably more powerful than any of the prior generation consoles and hand helds, and more powerful than all existing smart phones and tablets - including Google Pixel devices.

It will not be more powerful than current consoles. Even if putting the Switch unit in the home docking station enables a higher clock speed and active cooling (which seems likely) it's still not going to bring Switch up to the power of an Xbox One.

You want to come back and tell me that Nintendo Switch will so, be more powerful than Xbox One, PS4 or PS4PRO now? Probably not I would wager.

I feel that my point has been made. Perhaps you might like to go back a few posts and withdraw a few of the things you said to me.

[Magic-Mal]

Nintendo Switch is almost 100% certain to use an nVidia Tegra X2 System on a Chip (SoC) design - like the nVidia Tegra X1 based Shield tablet already does.

Here is the good news The Tegra X2 uses the same GPU core architecture as the top tier nVidia graphics cards, however it has a lower clock speed and has far fewer GPU cores.

Talking of GPU cores, let's take a look at the PS4 & PS4 Pro (I'll also make mention of the Xbox One). The PS4Pro has the latest and greatest AMD GPU architecture (Polaris 10/11) - which is roughly equivalent to the Pascal architecture in X2. PS4 uses an earlier GCN design from AMD and has 18 Compute units with 64 cores a piece for 1,152 'cores' giving about 1.84 TFLOPs (@800MHz). The PS4Pro by contrast has twice that number - 36 Compute Units with 64 cores per unit, for 2304 'cores' giving 4.2TFLOPs (@911MHz).


Let's talk nVidia the Tegra X2 GPU has 256 cores, a full bore GTX1080 has 2560 cores, that's 10 times the number, and has a much higher base clock speed than the X2 can manage. In short, the X2 inside the Switch has less than a tenth of the power of a GTX1080 GPU.

The GTX1080 peaks at about 9 TFLOPS (@1.6GHz). So your Nintendo Switch with about 1/10 of the cores will hit about 900 GFLOPs, but we know it will clock lower, dropping performance closer to 750 GFLOPS - which is the actual projected rating of the Tegra X2 for Floating Point math. This is not PS4 Pro beating, and it's not really on par with the original PS4 which has 1.84 TFLOPS performance (Xbox One has about 1.3TFLOPs).

Incidentally, the data bus in the Tegra X2 is only 128 bits wide which is half that of the PS4/PS4Pro resulting in much lower memory bandwidth on the X2 vs the APUs in Xbox One, PS4 and PS4 Pro.

So, let's review.

Theoretical max GPU performance;

Switch 750 GFLOPS (0.75 TFLOP)
Xbox One 1.3 TFLOPS
PS4 1.84 TFLOPS
PS4PRO 4.2TFLOPS

Switch data bus = 128bit
XBox One/PS4/PS4PRO = 256 bit

*Activates Google Translate*
-Google Translate: Error. Unknown Language

[Kosmos992k]

*Activates Google Translate*
-Google Translate: Error. Unknown Language

The language is "geek", or more specifically "hardware geek".

[Bladesinger]

SNIP

So um, not sure where you're getting your info and the fact that you're not clarifying which VERSION of the X2 Tegra is inside the SWITCH dev kits leads me to believe that you don't have the foggiest idea of what is going into it - The Dev Kits as stated on the business side of www.gamesindustry.biz are stating that switch Dev Kits are sporting: And I'll keep this simple without having to waste more time with you..

SOC Name - Parker

Process Technology - 16nm finFET

CPU - 12 core CPU

CPU Architecture - 8x Cortex-A57 running @ 2GHz per core

GPU - PASCAL

Compute TFLOPs - 8TFLOPS

System Memory - 8 GB of LPDDR4

Graphics Memory - 4 GB GDDR5

TDP - 25W?

Now, none of this is stated as being ironclad in regards to what consumers should be getting, but if they're working with that kind of horsepower - She's close..

So instead of arguing with me, we could have exchanged information and would have been more then happy to share. Try and have a good evening =)




P.S. I'd like to state that dev kits usually run double what consumers can expect from the finished product. With that said, Nintendo stated to I believe Forbes that they want to "leaps and bounds over Sony and MS with the Switch" Not sure if they're going to be able to do that, but with even half of the specs listed here - FFXIV would most certainly be able run on it (^-^)

[Kosmos992k]

So um, not sure where you're getting your info and the fact that you're not clarifying which VERSION of the X2 Tegra is inside the SWITCH dev kits leads me to believe that you don't have the foggiest idea of what is going into it

Tegra X2 (now seems to be referred to as Tegra P1 as well) is Parker, it has 256 GPU cores.

SOC Name - Parker

Process Technology - 16nm finFET

CPU - 12 core CPU

CPU Architecture - 8x Cortex-A57 running @ 2GHz per core

Both incorrect. Parker uses 2 Denver cores and 4 ARM Cortex A57s. The Denver cores run ARM instruction set, but implement out of order execution and additional VLIW commands in addition to the standard 64-bit ARM instruction set. That's not 12 cores, it's 6.

GPU - PASCAL

Compute TFLOPs - 8TFLOPS

Yes the GPU is a Pascal design, but unlike the GTX1080 which has 2560 cores, Parker has only 256. You're quoting the Tflops attirbuted to the top end Pascal raphics card, not the performance attributed to the X2/P1 (Parker) which is 750GFLOPS (single precision - 32-bit) and 1.5 TFLOPS (16-bit half precision).

System Memory - 8 GB of LPDDR4

Graphics Memory - 4 GB GDDR5

That's probably wrong. Parker is a system on a chip design that supports up to 16GB of LPDDR4 memory, it has a single 128 bit bus, so no provision for separate GDDR5 is available. 8GB is half the max it could have, and no GDDR5 is available. That 4GB of GDDR5 would be likely on a Pascal Graphics card in a PC however. I'd be prepared to believe 8, 12 or 16 GB of LPDDR4 however.

Now, none of this is stated as being ironclad in regards to what consumers should be getting, but if they're working with that kind of horsepower - She's close..

No, 'she' is not.

So instead of arguing with me, we could have exchanged information and would have been more then happy to share. Try and have a good evening =)

Sorry, no. You're posting incorrect and misleading information.

P.S. I'd like to state that dev kits usually run double what consumers can expect from the finished product.

That's not really true. Dev kits invariably have more memory, and early kits don't use the real hardware, so sometimes they are more powerful than the actual device, sometimes less. However the fundamental point of a dev kit is to run the game as it will run on a consumer device. The additional memory available on Dev Kits is there to provide for the additional overheads of debugging tools.

With that said, Nintendo stated to I believe Forbes that they want to "leaps and bounds over Sony and MS with the Switch" Not sure if they're going to be able to do that, but with even half of the specs listed here - FFXIV would most certainly be able run on it (^-^)

Well, Nintendo says that when they are going after new control schemes or types of play, not attempting to eclipse hardware. Also, the specs you posted are wrong.

Nvidia.s data on Parker is easily available;

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10596/...parker-details

http://wccftech.com/nvidia-tegra-parker-soc-hot-chips/

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/1...itchs-insides/

P.S. Switch is a hand held unit. It has a docking station that might provide some active cooling so that the SoC can be overclocked for better performance while docked, but the system is fundamentally very similar to an nVidia Shield system and as such *IS* a hand held unit. The dock provides a bit of hybrid capability, but the actual unit is hand held.

[Bladesinger]

Snip

Touché on a good bulk of it - BUT the information I provided in one of my posts came directly from gamesindustry.biz from Devs working on the hardware - this is not speculation - the stats I gave are what is currently being found int he Dev kits currently in the hands of said developers - All 3 of the sources you cited are nothing more then speculation sites about what is possibly going to be going into the switch, it unfortunately doesn't reference the fact that the Parker being used is a custom one developed for the soul intention of giving maximum bang as a home console and a mobile one.

The unfortunate part of all this is unfortunately, no one knows what the final product is going to house - All I can say is quite a few developers are planning to port games over that are currently being played on PS4 and Xbox one, so yes - "SHE" is close


Honestly - we'll be finding out in January at the grand reveal with all the press

[Kosmos992k]

Touché on a good bulk of it - BUT the information I provided in one of my posts came directly from gamesindustry.biz from Devs working on the hardware - this is not speculation - the stats I gave are what is currently being found int he Dev kits currently in the hands of said developers -

You're currently attributing 8 TeraFLOP performance, which is the performance of a top tier discrete GPU graphics card, to a SoC which doesn't have sufficient silicon to handle more than a fraction of the GPU cores on the graphics card. I'm sorry, this may seem like a small point to you, but it's not. You are quite literally multiplying the GPU performance on a Tegra P1 (aka X2 aka what's inside a Nintendo Switch) by a factor of 10, which just so happens to be the ratio of GPU cores on a Tegra P1 (256) vs the Pascal based GPU on the graphics card (GTX 1080 has 2560 GPU cores).

Just because I'm not some industry source mysteriously quoted by Gamesindusty.biz does not alter the reality or accuracy of what I am saying.

The transistor count on a full bore Pascal GPU is in the region of 7 billion, and that's about the same transistor count as on the Pascal based Tegra SoC. Except that the GPU includes only GPU cores, and the Tegra has 6 CPU cores, two of which are Denver based cores; along with lots of cache memory and the other units that are normally implemented on a completely separate motherboard chipset in a PC design. In other words, there is not enough room on a Tegra SoC of any kind for a full strength Pascal GPU to match the performance of a GTX1080 (for instance).

It doesn't matter what those sources quoted by gamesindustry.biz say, the same kinds of sources were praising the PS3 to the hills, just as nVidia had all sorts of glowing praise for the revolutionary RSX at the heart of the PS3, etc. This is part of the normal hype cycle of a new product. But no hype can alter the actual silicon, no hype will inflate the number of transistors available by 100%, no hype will multiply the number of GPU cores available by a factor of 10 nor will it accelerate mobile GPU performance to that of a desktop one.

The truth of the Nintendo Switch hardware is that it will be more powerful than a PS3, but will not be more powerful (nor quite as powerful) as an Xbox One, Xbox One S, PS4, PS4Pro or any Xbox successor that arrives about this time next year.

To put this into context, excluding raw GPU performance, SoC's like Tegra are close enough to the performance of non-handheld devices that you cannot really tell the difference. Just as APU performance is very much close enough to the performance of systems based on separate CPUs and GPUs that in most respects you can't really tell, even in terms of raw GPU performance unless you have a semi-decent graphics card for comparison. So, at the end of the day, outside of the raw GPU performance, Tegra P1 based devices will have at least 80% of the CPU power of any other system. But due to the realities of physical design and manufacture, there is simply not enough GPU hardware shoe-horned onto an SoC to match a discrete GPU like the Pascal based GTX1080.

The last thing I will say, as I have said elsewhere in this topic already is this. Ninteno Switch will be a powerful device - in it's own right. It won't be as, or more, powerful than a PS4 which is the unrealistic boast that dragged me into this topic. It doesn't need to be. It will play games at about 1080 resolution. 4K doesn't matter to Nintendo, nor should it. What matters is hitting 60fps on the screen on the Switch handheld itself, and being able to hit 60fps on the TV attached to the base station. I think it will do both of these things. Games written for Switch will look great on Switch, as they should. Multi-platforms will look as good on Switch as they do on other systems - because that is quite literally the job of a game developer in a multi-platform development environment. None of these things require more than what a Tegra P1 (aka X2, aka the SoC most likely in the Switch) will be capable of.

That's all, that's it. I am done trying to persuade you of reality, so if this is not enough for you, so be it.

[Bladesinger]

Snip

Um - how the hell do you know what size the silicon wafer currently being utilized in the dev kit is? It's more then likely a BOX and not a representation of the final consumer model. You continue to spew the general knowledge of the architecture within the Switch without thinking or commenting that a console in development changes tech an AVERAGE of 4 times in it's development lifespan - Every aspect of the dev kits that we do know of HAS BEEN STATED to utilize the most advanced technical components currently avaliable. Stop thinking that what is IN the dev kits is what is being proposed to be in the consumer models. Your not going to convince me other wise because you sound like some guy that did a little search on google to find UNFOUNDED info on WHAT MAY go into the consumer model and utilize it to beat me and everyone else into submission. =\


I just looked at the size of your post - My God, do you not have something better to do - wow =P

As I said in my last post - we'll be finding out what's in it in January (^-^)

[Kosmos992k]

Um - how the hell do you know**snip**
I just looked at the size of your post - My God, do you not have something better to do - wow =P

How do I know? I read.

Oh, and insult noted.