I am excited for the Switch 2. Can't wait to see how they handle the upgrade as well as current competition across mobile and console levels. Or don't handle it as Nintendo does their own thing.
I'm glad that there's this comparison between different DLSS modes upscaling from the same base resolution, just to a different display resolution. Nicely shows DLSS' computational cost.
In hypothetical terms, the switch is as synthetically powerful as a 2050, but u seen Nintendos 2017 PORTABLE console play the most demanding games, it's bc they butchered the resolution to 240p in some scenarios, and they have extreme optimization, even the new fortnite update looks surprisingly good on it, and all that with mid tier smartphone hardware from 2015, bc tegra x1 was already old when the switch got it, so basically a decade old hardware jump almost, if the switch 1 did that, than imagine how ampere architecture will handle it next with the optimized code
Digital Foundry once had a video on how DLSS would not be beneficial on small die sizes for one like the Switch/Shield SoC. I'm thinking that take is not valid and this will definitely use the tech.
they already improved the ultra performance dlss mode, techpower up did a comparison and it already looks much better than previously (this was months ago now)
Update: the storage solution has been leaked the info is that Samsung's 5th Generation V-NAND memory is being used for both the cartridges' SDHC and the internal SDD or HDD unsure at the moment. Up to 256GB capacity with speeds of 1.6 GBPS. This is 5 times what you need to run a 4K video. Samsung is also providing the QLED display.
One thing to keep in mind about the time cost of DLSS - a significant portion of that will be due to post-processing being performed after upscaling, since you're dramatically increasing the pixel count. Developers could do post-processing before upscaling, as the postprocessing quality option in Alan Wake 2 allows, to significantly improve performance.
no clue why so many people upvote that but... DLSS wouldn't like that (post process stuff before upscaling) and nvidia advices that very specifically...
@@PrefoX Thanks for the correction! Though it would be irrational to assume that nvidia didn't develop something specially tailored to this new chip and for these kinds of portable platforms. At least i am super hyped and hope that nvidia will bring us more chips in this space! Their research department is running on 2000% power it seems and since the first RTX Generation the pace of development has been staggering. They weren't able to buy ARM outright, but i am pretty sure that this won't deter them from becoming a behemoth in that space, and finally a serious competition to apple's ARM based chips. All i want for christmas is a standalone vr headset based on an nvidia chip that actually brings some architectural and technological innovations. Developing for these kind of devices comes with so many restrictions and it needs technological advances to outgrow these. Qualcomm has not really delivered here and i hope Nvidia can.
@@PrefoX Yeah there's obviously a quality loss doing it that way, but we're talking about squeezing as much performance as possible out of very weak hardware, and this is one way to accomplish that. And even the PS5/Series X versions of Alan Wake 2 are doing it this way.
A lot of games run a primary and secondary upscale - the primary one (usually temporal) is ran after the geometry and lighting but before the post-process effects (with the exception of DoF), and the secondary one after the post-process effects, usually before rendering the UI.
I wouldn't be surprised if DLSS is optimized further to have a smaller millisecond cost, there may even be a Switch specific one that may be closer to TSR/FSR2 in upsampling quality but using AI to make it much cheaper.
What if they called it the Switch Advance to honor the last in a line of legendary Nintendo handhelds? Nintendo filed a patent that could be their future console, sucks it wasn’t on here. Would’ve been nice to have the DF experts give us their insights, we need it because the patents depict something that’s pretty bonkers. It’s like a mix between the DS and Switch.
Its pretty much a safe bet that this will be the SoC, it has been for a while. The Xavier is way too old at this point and Thor is too far off. The Switch 2 will be comparable to a base PS4 in raw power, but with more and faster RAM, much faster load times and DLSS, which will all augment its visuals and performance closer to that of a PS4 Pro, which is everything Nintendo needs for the next 10 years. Good days are coming.
Since it's now known to be a custom version of this chip, it'd be safe to either add or subtract 25% to these total numbers. Plus I'm sure they've got some crazy DLSS/Ray tracing chip upgrade in there to make it all work
Eh... You it's more you don't notice how much better 4K looks till after you've looked at them back to back. Also remember that TH-cam itself heavily processes the image you see and depending on your device your display may further process it.
DLSS and XeSS have gotten very good. Even at 1080p Performance mode (540p internal resolution), the image quality looks pretty darn good. Not the same as native 1080p, but not far off.
Given what they squeezed out of the X1 with Metroid Prime Remastered and other such games, I'm so curious to see what might be possible from Nintendo devs on hardware that _isn't_ almost a decade old.
I really hope they also take advantage of variable refresh rate display (at least on battery and when possible also docked). It makes a huge difference. I'd also love to see a bit higher fps target than 30. 60fps is perhaps not possible, but 40 could be.
As nice as that would be, no way the higher ups at Nintendo would give the green light to acknowledge that 120Hz displays even exist in 2024. This is the same company that doesn't have HDR on Switch because of the pennies extra to go from HDMI 1.4 to HDMI 2.0 on their dock (yes, the Switch Tegra supports it). It honestly wouldn't surprise me if HDR wasn't on the Switch 2 when it will obviously have the chip even more capable to do so
@@PantsaBear hilarious, I'm expecting a 720p display for the switch 2 as well, which is still fine at 7 inches, the thing I'm also expecting is for said display to be TFT despite the panel that's already used in the switch OLED, Nintendo is just different
Doubtful, especially if it still docks to a TV. Most TVs in the world don't support VRR, therefore it's extra cost for no reason to Nintendo. Nintendo are penny pinchers, don't forget that. If it's not a flashy selling point that wows people, it's not worth it to them.
The Switch 2 must have at least 1080p for the display in handheld mode and Nintendo will most definitely address the memory bandwidth issues with the current Switch hardware.
@@Ben-io2vo DLSS is a similar upscaling technology from Nvidia like FSR. It is the most advanced one to be honest, and that is coming from someone who don't like Nvidia (anymore). But unlike the upscaling technology from AMD and Intel, the DLSS is only usable by Nvidia cards.
@@Ben-io2vo I'm going to massively simplify here, but pretty much it lets you run the game at a lower internal resolution then upscales it to output a high resolution image. It does this job extremely well and isn't noticable in most cases, so it's basically free performance if a GPU supports it.
Great content as always, thanks for the hard work! One thing I was wondering and would have been nice to see is a rough "generational upgrade comparison" between current Switch games running on the Switch vs their RTX2050 counterpart. Also, I believe most media outlets were qualifying the 2050 as an unspoken 3040 at the time of release, not sure what the story behind it is but your analysis seemed to confirm it was indeed a lesser 3050. Cheers!
Great analysis rich! I'm personally most excited about 1st party, and indie titles on the new hardware, and I'll delegate future "impossible ports" as testament to ongoing advancement in optimization and support for our hybrid/mobile future. In other words, I'm not expecting graphical revelations, but I do excpect experiences that challenge the established narrative both visually and interactively. That's all I can hope for a baseline.
Rich! You star! An awesome video, I really love and appreciate your you (and the teams) experience, honesty, pragmatism and love for the medium. Major kudos sir.
I'm kind of in awe right now. If this is how well games are running on what could be similar to Nintendo's next system, and that is without the console optimization that usually goes into Switch games, then I think this next generation for Nintendo is going to be incredible. Can you even imagine this level of mobile horsepower behind Nintendo's art direction? I cannot wait to see what they do next.
4K30 BOTW and TOTK with significant IQ improvements (including but not limited to pushing out LOD) and DLSS seems like the benchmark, based in part on Rich's analysis
@@renatoramos8834 Unlikely. This is about as accurate as they'll get. Watch the "Moore's Law is Dead" video titled "Nintendo Switch 2 Leak: Specs, Power, Pricing, and Nvidia's Console Ambitions!" At 10:59 in that video, there are quotes from 2 x Nvidia employees. I'll quote one of them in case you don't want to look it up: "To be honest, the Switch 2 isn't really on my radar anymore - right now I am focused on finishing up validation for Blackwell. Switch 2 silicon has been done since late 2022. As far as I am aware, *that Digital Foundry article looking at the T239 processor leaked from when we were hacked is an almost entirely correct summary of what's true about the silicon in the Switch 2.* We presented several options to Nintendo, including one that utilized Lovelace, and they *basically selected a cost-optimized version of Orin.* It has some efficiency tweaks from Lovelace, and a few other goodies added as well. Oh, and AMD bid against us HARD for the Switch 2 btw, but ended up losing the bid..." DF basically has the Switch 2 specs down. Remember, Nintendo is trying to sell hardware at a profit, so if they price the Switch 2 at $400, the console's hardware & assembly cost a decent amount less than that. What kind of specs do you think Nintendo scraped together (in 2022 no less), that can be sold for a profit at $400, while also including things like a screen, storage, dock, joycons, etc.? Probably not too much.
I really hope they keep the form factor/thinness of the original switch. one thing I dont like about the steamdeck/others is how bulky it is. the form factor of the original switch is just excellent
This is crazy Rich, you made life really hard for that approximated chip and it still performed crazy surprisingly good at 1080p! Now add native compilation with kernel and api optimization from Nintendo, the RT cores, low TDP tweaking (and also much higher clocks, I'm certain!) and freakin DLSS updated specific for Nintendo and you'll definitely get a 4k, maybe RT experience, on the go. I'm hopeful
Correct, it's exceedingly likely to be using TSMC 4N (same as Lovelace). Sounds way too expensive for Nintendo right? Well. I did an area size estimate for T239 and found that the die would be under 100mm² on this node. Combined with best public estimates of 4N wafer cost and yield, T239 would cost about $20 per working chip. Include the price of memory, packaging, and Nvidias markup to Nintendo, and you have the SoC + 12GB LPDDR5 6400 + assembled on PCB costing Nintendo no more than $75, with a more likely cost being closer to $65-70. This leaves Nintendo plenty of room to still make a profit on the console hardware given even very high estimates for the costs of the other console components
@@2intheampm512 Remember The original switch used 20nm when tsmc 10nm was being used in other mobile products (snapdragon 835). $65 is way too low. Touchscreen, stand and SoC were estimated at $167 for the original switch. Everyone seems to expect switch 2 to cost more.
@@johnm91326 You didn't see TSMC 10FF SoCs until 2017. Remember that Tegra X1 came out in 2015, over a full year earlier. 20nm was kind of a fluke, Nvidia pretty much had to make something on those wafers (which they ordered and allocated from TSMC) since 16FF wasn't ready yet for Pascal, and Maxwell stayed on 28nm. Considering 4N is essentially still a TSMC N5 node, I think it's pretty reasonable timeline wise for Nintendo and Nvidia to have opted for the process for a console coming out in 2024. 2020 was the first year for TSMC N5, so we have a 4 year old node being used. Even if you don't accept that, at he very least 4N will be approaching 2 years old by the time T239 is out in Switch 2s
@@2intheampm512 T239 seems to be based on T234, a 2019 product. Moving from Samsung 8 to tsmc 4 would be costly for a budget device. Even with the x1 Nintendo could have released the 16nm shrink at launch, but didnt.
@@johnm91326 There aren't that many IP blocks to port to 4N in all honesty. Also considering the requisite increases to battery size, cooling capacity, and device size to compensate a far less power efficient 8N chip, T239 on 4N bears out cheaper overall
More cell shade graphics that don't really rely on hardware. Meh, would rather see how it performs on modern masterpieces like Red Dead Redemption 2, Elden Ring, and Baldur's Gate 3.
Yeah, given how optimized some Nintendo games are I wouldn't be surprised if some first party titles, especially at the beginning of the generation, ran at 4K natively with no DLSS implementation, of course I'm talking about less ambitious titles like a Yoshi or a Kirby game, but that'd still show the capabilities of those developers.
@@JFinns I mean there's also games like Mario Oddysey and Mario Kart 8 which still looks amazing while still maintaining 60fps. And they're not cel-shaded.
Here's a pipe dream: incorporating variable locked framerates like the deck. I would love handheld 40fps stable without stutter. Good luck getting it to match TV standards though.
If the real switch 2 can do what this simulation did it will be great. Let's remember it is possible to further optimize on fixed hardware! So great stuff.
Yes. With none of these games a graphics programmer spent one second trying to optimize them for low-end laptop hardware. That was never the target for these games so they are expectedly wasteful when running on it.
I just wish it was more powerful though. By the time switch 2 releases, it will likely be considered underpowered again. And in a few years, developers will start to struggle in developing games for the switch yet again especially since developers are now trying to tap the potential of Unreal Engine 5. Nintendo games deserves better.
@@SabaelosUE5 performance wise is a trainwreck, I’d much rather have games that look PS4 level on a handheld. It’s a fucking handheld people, stop expecting 4090 performance on a tablet.
@@supbro6505 yes, ue5 games is badly optimized right now, but it could also be the standard 3-5 years from now. Then the switch will be in the exact same spot as it was before. I had hoped they would at least get a low powered 3050ti instead of a 2050 because it will just become obsolete a lot faster. If they really want people to stop expecting more then maybe they shouldn't advertise it as a home console hybrid and specifically target the handheld market.
@@Sabaelos No, you people have sky high expectations. Technology isn’t at the point where we can expect that much performance with little heat, decent battery life, etc. You said it yourself, it’s a hybrid. Not a pure handheld and not a full home console.
Excellent analysis given the limited hardware you can benchmark. I’m very much looking forward to Switch 2 (or the Super Switch as I like to call it). Nintendo first party devs have done wonders with the limited hardware available, so it fills me with hope we could be in store for some truly wonderful experiences with the next gen of Nintendo hardware.
I must say that I REALLY hope the Switch 2 will also support Nvidia GSync or HDMI forum VRR. It's such an amazing quality of life function that should be taken for granted today. Especially from Nvidia hardware.
I know this is all hypothetical work based on trying to replicate the leaked specs of a processor that maybe might be used for the potential Switch 2 and all that, but the performance in the tests was jaw-dropping to consider that the Switch 2 could in theory reach that. The idea of potentially having a physical cartridge copy of Cyberpunk 2077 on a portable console is mind-warping...very excited to see how the Switch 2 story develops.
Since 2016 I have been enjoying the Rich Narrated DF predictions about Nvidia’s new “mobile” chips & Nintendo, always intriguing almost Asmr sleep inducing, in a good way. 😂❤
Great video, though regarding DLSS, I wonder if what's happening is that the tensor cores are actually depriving the other cores of power, and that's why we see the FPS decrease? If so, Nintendo could keep them switched off in portable mode, since that's gonna be 720p anyway, and turn them on in docked, where more power is available, and resolution matters much more.
Yeah, I can imagine the console essentially targeting between 720p and 1080p native performance, and then using DLSS to do the rest. Turning the cores off in handheld would be a good power-saving measure.
@joed5150 he didn't really have much of a choice though. That is the only ampere in existance where he could actually make a basically 1:1 match with simulating the t239, raster compute, rt compute, and tensor compute were all exact matches for the t239 @ 1ghz. No other ampere could actually get clocked low enough to reach that performance level with the number of sm's they had. Even bottlenecked to heck, this was an incredibly promising showing.
I’m looking forward to the next switch, it could be in a strange position in that it probably will be significantly less powerful than xbsx and ps5 yet it could outperform them in ray tracing due to dedicated RT hardware
Exactly this! 60fps is the real make-or-break issue. I wouldn't consider myself a graphics snob by any stretch. Switch graphics are perfectly fine, as long as they're not noticeably compromised. Sure, it's _nice_ to have good graphics, but the games really just need to run well, with 60fps and fast loading!
I wonder if the decompression in the SoC will also be used for “catridges” so they more or less just have flash memory on them then the SoC makes sure the files on it gets delivered quickly enough, where a typical PC NVMe SSD has a controller alongside the flash memory to deliver those high speeds. With it being flash memory it might be possible to more easily scale the storage size to the needs of the game (usually as time goes on the more storage space can be delivered on less size so it can scale into the future as well).
@@lzap_CZ the Japanese market for physical is big so I don't think it will go away there anytime soon. But if there won't be a way for physical to fit everything then the only option is to install it on the device then just have the physical as a confirmation you own it (and possible way to install the game without internet connection or at least install most of the game).
A very exciting piece of Hardware. A few notes - AV1 decoding seems tailor made to enable cloud streaming. AV1 should allow to either reduce bandwidth required or improve quality. But the fact that they really went for an A78 octa core is also not what I expected. Right now we know that a large majority of games can't properly use 8 cores and are still single thread limited. On a chip that needs to be cost and power efficient 8 going for 8 mid-sized A78 cores seem a bit optimistic and I doubt that devs will be able to properly utilize them, especially in the beginning of the hardware.
When you look at the current Switch CPU utilization on recent intensive games with homebrew, even TOTK, the Xenoblade games and the likes, you'll see that the CPU is getting hammered pretty hard actually. Maybe it's a consequence of the CPU being so low clocked the single core performance isn't even a bottleneck, but IMO 8 cores will be just fine. Don't forget they allocated 1 core to specifically handle system and background tasks, with a more modern UI, they may as well allocate 2 of them this time. We'd end up with a 6 cores CPU in actual gameplay which is perfectly fine. IPC and single core performance is indeed crucial to games but modern engines have become better when it comes to multithreading at least some parts of it.
I am thinking that if they were showing a custom demo of the Unreal 5 Matrix demo, that Epic will be working to roll out improvements to UE5's core utilization/multi-threading so that more developers looking to develop for Switch 2 will choose Unreal Engine 5.x
Wasn't A53 inside Tegra X1 disabled because deflect ?? Nvdia Tegra t239 performance will be lower than Low end Exynos 1330 because less efficient fab (Samsung 8nm) and lower clocked speed and because it doesn't have efficient core like Mediatek Dimensity 9300 and it will throttled a lot after 30 minutes game play.
I guarantee you nvidia has made a port of t234/t239 to samsung 5nm at some point for R&D purposes, they could easily tweak that same design and offer it to nintendo
I know, caveats up to your eyeballs, but man that looks so much better than I'd expected. And I quite liked my switch already, Doom is such an achievement I can't wait to see what the switch 2 version of Elden Ring or Baldur's Gate 3 or even Minecraft RT looks like on a handheld screen
Giving devs direct access to the “metal”, goes a long way in helping to optimize games for the upcoming switch. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see series S levels of quality coming out of the next switch. -- that may be a boon for the series S in terms of dev support and dev priority if the next switch sells very well.
I don't see the Switch 2 getting anywhere near Series S levels of performance. The Switch 2 will like be $400 and a handheld. It's basically impossible to get Series S levels of graphics quality out of that reality at this time.
@@gameboy8877 The Switch won't have the latest iteration of DLSS though since it will most likely be Ampere-based. And given that DLSS does still have a performance cost, it's hard to say that it's gonna be able to make up the difference. It's just unreasonable to think a $400 handheld is going to be able to quite get to Series S levels of performance.
It will be very interesting to see how they utilize the ml accelerator. Similarly on pcs, all the new chips are going to have ai accelerators. Could those be used for diss and similar gaming ai models, offloading the gpu?
Well, it can't offload from the gpu, because the gpu is where the ml accelerators (tensor cores) physically are. It can offload from the cuda cores to the tensor cores, which is exactly what dlss does.
I appreciate the video a lot but it has to be said that I dont think it paints the full picture. Keep in mind the Switch 2 will use ASTC texture compression (unavailable natively on desktop, except for some older Intel iGPUs), maybe even gDeflate, shaders are bundled in, therefore less processing required, way more fine tuned custom software solutions compared to the general purpose PC software etc. But even in this kind of "worst case" scenario I think its pretty darn good for a handheld, not to mention the directly developed / optimized titles. Nintendo, Retro Studios and Monolith Soft are true wizards. Awesome Video!
Did you check the VRAM cost for DLSS? The assets could be of higher quality as the target resolution rises, even if the input resolution stays the same. This can contribute to the giant overhead in your results, and is definitely more stressful for your 4GB VRAM, comparing to consoles where more RAM is available (even if shared with the CPU, PS4 pro can load assets for 4K targets into 8GB GDDR5)
A good comparison to 8C Orin would be something like the Ryzen 2700 if downclocked 20% or so. The performance is not that different and the cores are also in a dual 4C cluster with not very fast caches. Though it is usual for Nvidia to provide some of the faster memory subsystems in ARM chips.
@@tristanweide The PS5 is a 2700 with half the FPU. The Switch 2 will be influenced by the clockspeeds they manage on a portable device but I think the CPU perf will be surprising to many.
@@boscotheman82it depends if they use a smaller die size like the 4n it's supposed to the 8th nanometer then you're going to see a very nice jump in performance
considering how well Nintendo know how to fully exploit their own hardware it wouldn't surprise me seeing a Ray Tracing Mario game running at perfect 60 FPS while perfectly looking like somthing that could've come from the PS5
It depends on what they are doing with it, it's one thing to do Mario at 720p, bumping that up to 4k would need a lot more horsepower, just at the same visuals settings, but gamers will be expecting much better visuals being its next gen hardware, so 4k is a bit of a pipe dream without some major upscaling. There's also the factor that Nintendo tends to be very conservative on performance per watt to get better battery life, so clock rates could be reduced quite a bit for battery life.
Heck, Mario Kart 8 ran at 1080p 60 FPS on the Switch, on Switch 2 it could easily run at 4K 60 without using DLSS. Ofcourse, the logical thing to do would be to improve fidelity and target 1440p DLSS instead. But indies targeting low spec graphics and some Nintendo titles (like Mario vs Donkey Kong) would simply thrive.
Excited to see what devs will do. Death Stranding literally ran on hardware from 2013 and to see what that game was able to do is super impressive. Tight optimization and good design is what devs gotta focus on moving forward to make tighter games.
Whatever they decide to do with the next console, I’m sure they’ll continue to release incredible first party titles and the indie scene will fill out the rest. I have my XSX for AAA third party gaming.
If you told anyone 25 years ago that we'd have graphics like this on mobile, they'd lose their mind. Honestly, the OG Switch is still impressive to me. These graphics on a Switch 2 are insane.
I'm personally fine with DLSS preformance mode at 1080p. Expecially with the more recent DLSS modes it gets pretty damn close to looking like native 1080p. Yeah it's a bit soft and there may be some artifacts here and there, but it looks pretty good for the most part
It sounds like it’ll be the traditional Nintendo console. Third party games will be dated upon release and look worse and run worse than every other console but Nintendo first party games will look great. I’m always happy for a new Nintendo system but I wish they could have pushed this even further.
This is a very useful video for expectation management. I wonder if they'll actually be able to pull off 4k on the actual hardware (not that I'll likely play it docked anyway :P )
Regarding DLSS not being a free lunch and the lower framerates on Death Stranding, isn't that because, even if all of the modes presented are based on 720p native, the games are using higher resolution/quality buffers depending on the output resolution after DLSS?
I reckon they should focus on memory bandwidth also storage speed as we have seen overclocked ram bandwidth on modded switch’s improves performance. Nintendo and NVIDA should look at AMD’s Infinity Cache set up to increase bandwidth without increasing cost or power draw.
Expectation is 100GB/s of memory bandwidth. Should be sufficient to keep the GPU and cores fed in handheld mode. In docked mode bandwidth may begin to become more of a bottleneck to performance, I'm hoping they've put 4MB of L2$ on the GPU to mitigate this somewhat
@@2intheampm512 Nintendo should take a page from the PS5 with its ssd and custom processors to remove bottlenecks. Also implement cache into memory like AMD’s Infinity Cache to increase bandwidth at a cheaper cost.
i really hope this soc or its variant, makes its way to the new Nvidia ShieldTV since the current X1/X1+ chip used in all ShieldTV editions(2015-2019) is already 9 years old and could use an upgrade(hopefully one with at least 8gb of ram). I have 4 different shields in my house and they are showing their age. Although can still easily play any media format and android games - even my 2019 Shield Pro(best and newest Shield that exists) is suffering from only having 3gb of ram
Rich, did you look at Tensor Core Utilization per frametime with nsight? What I noticed with DLSS is actual utilization of TCs in ms of a frame is often very low. There seems to be computation outside of the TCs per frame which might utilize the Vector FPUs. I suspect not every piece if DLSS is ML. Potentially limited to Pixel Clamping and when it fails (fe at disocclusion) to „hallucinate“ a conclusive datapoint. Aside from that a very signicant portion of thr cost for DLSS is computation for Full Screen Effects. Those are rendered AFTER DLSS at outputresolution. So no wonder the poor rtx 2050 broke down as it had to render full screen effects to a 4K outputresolution (at 4k dlss ultra performance). There could be potential for the developer to reduce quality / resolution for full screen effects. Just some food for thought ;) I cam highly recommend using nsight to look into whats going on in a frame.
If we get anything close to a PS4 performance in handheld with DLSS support in a similar Form-factor of the current Switch, I would be extremely happy or anything along Decks performance but lighter and quieter
Radeon 780M, the iGPU present in most handhelds (ROG Ally, Legion Go, Win GPD4, etc) already handily beats PS4 performance and is quite close to PS4 Pro GPU, at least in theory. The limiting factor is power consumption -- the GPU in the Steam Deck frequently beats out the Ally at lower power consumption, due to extensive modifications made to make it more efficient than AMD's "ready-made" 780M. Keep in mind, though, that even max-powered 780M is far from being enough for most new AA+ titles. The major question is, can Nvidia make something that performs similarly but consumes less power? I doubt it, personally. Nvidia's GPUs are more efficient than AMD's in the desktop space, but they have very little experience with comparable size constraints.
We should remember that a Steam Deck 2 is likely around 2025, and there's already a much more powerful portable PC gaming machine on the market. I would actually consider a Switch 2 with Steam Deck 1 level of performance quite poor if I'm honest. As for PS4 level visuals with upscaling, that seems doable and in any event, it's going to be a massive upgrade over the Switch 1, which was old even on release but I don't expect it to compete with PC portable gaming devices that are released around that time.
It's looking just like the og switch. A bit slower on the cpu side and more powerful on the gpu side than current flagship phones. Can you test out 3dmark wildlife extreme on the 2050 at the lowest clocks.
Considering that Nintendo released the OG Switch with a 20nm TSMC node when there was already wide availability of its 16nm production node, and the ridiculous price increase to produce chips on the newest litographies, I think we'll see TSMC's 6nm at the absolute best. That and the reports saying Nvidia sold tons of Samsung-8nm-made T239s to Nintendo for the first few million Switch 2 units makes it seem like the Switch 2 will have an underwhelming performance despite the relatively new technologies being used. The reason for this is the horrible performance/watt on Samsung made chips.
@@MegaLoquendo2000those reports have 0 credibilty, its not a matter of a choice, Nintendo can't use 8nm samsung and expect it to last more than 2 horus
I'm most excited to see what Nintendo's own devs put forward on the next piece of hardware. Xenoblade, in particular, is a series I could see taking full advantage of DLSS to just let their current assets shine
Can't stress enough how much I love Rich's deep dives into hypothetical hardware specs
Rich is still my favorite on DF. I always get excited for his videos.
It just sounds like cope tbh
@@oo--7714 lol ok
Hypothetical is an understatement. I am skeptical. It is a wiiide stretch of a comparison.
Edit: typo
@@oo--7714 Honestly, he's gotten pretty good at this. Obviously grain of salt territory, but it's still a fun watch.
I am excited for the Switch 2. Can't wait to see how they handle the upgrade as well as current competition across mobile and console levels. Or don't handle it as Nintendo does their own thing.
Most likely the latter, Nintendo will do their own thing with the chip
@@HShangoi hope nintendo doesnt underclock the chip for switch 2. It'd be nice to play first party games at 60fps with decent graphics.
Stop giving NintenDONT your money. They’re such a terrible company that hates their fan base. I’m not buying anything from them anymore.
Burnt by the switch oled and switch lite to be honest my kids hate them and I don't like them really. Have to be a massive upgrade.
@@RyuTheDragon89 If it's a portable, they probably will so they don't need a beefy battery or cooler. Keeps manufacturing costs down.
I'm glad that there's this comparison between different DLSS modes upscaling from the same base resolution, just to a different display resolution. Nicely shows DLSS' computational cost.
They could put frame generation and reflex to, switch 2 would be a killer
I love how Rich squeezes so much info into his videos. No messing and he has the confidence that you can keep up. Very skilled guy
You could say they are very “Rich” in content 😉
I’ll see myself out.
@@wrightt48 Noooo. Stayyyyy!!!
Remember reading his stuff back in the 90s, the C&VG and Mean Machines days. Good times.
Rich coming with the most detailed content always.
A rich content, IYKWIM.
In hypothetical terms, the switch is as synthetically powerful as a 2050, but u seen Nintendos 2017 PORTABLE console play the most demanding games, it's bc they butchered the resolution to 240p in some scenarios, and they have extreme optimization, even the new fortnite update looks surprisingly good on it, and all that with mid tier smartphone hardware from 2015, bc tegra x1 was already old when the switch got it, so basically a decade old hardware jump almost, if the switch 1 did that, than imagine how ampere architecture will handle it next with the optimized code
@@jeffhernandez6880the gpu was equivalent to flagship phones of late 2016 early 2017.
I hope this means NVIDIA improves DLSS upscaling from sub-1080p base resolution, and these improvements are brought to PC.
720p upscaled to 1080p looks good imo, same with 720p upscaled to 1440, upscaling anything below 720p looks bad
Digital Foundry once had a video on how DLSS would not be beneficial on small die sizes for one like the Switch/Shield SoC. I'm thinking that take is not valid and this will definitely use the tech.
they already improved the ultra performance dlss mode, techpower up did a comparison and it already looks much better than previously (this was months ago now)
@@SengialI think 720p resolution is the sweet spot for upscaling
@@SengialControl at 1440p performance (720p internal) looks surprisingly great, a bit blurry in some ways but not nearly as bad as you'd expect.
Update: the storage solution has been leaked the info is that Samsung's 5th Generation V-NAND memory is being used for both the cartridges' SDHC and the internal SDD or HDD unsure at the moment. Up to 256GB capacity with speeds of 1.6 GBPS. This is 5 times what you need to run a 4K video. Samsung is also providing the QLED display.
Cool
Hopefully it will be good enough to compete with the Deck and the ROG
@@docArr666 The switch is already better than the Deck as a portable device.
One thing to keep in mind about the time cost of DLSS - a significant portion of that will be due to post-processing being performed after upscaling, since you're dramatically increasing the pixel count. Developers could do post-processing before upscaling, as the postprocessing quality option in Alan Wake 2 allows, to significantly improve performance.
no clue why so many people upvote that but... DLSS wouldn't like that (post process stuff before upscaling) and nvidia advices that very specifically...
@@PrefoX Thanks for the correction! Though it would be irrational to assume that nvidia didn't develop something specially tailored to this new chip and for these kinds of portable platforms. At least i am super hyped and hope that nvidia will bring us more chips in this space!
Their research department is running on 2000% power it seems and since the first RTX Generation the pace of development has been staggering. They weren't able to buy ARM outright, but i am pretty sure that this won't deter them from becoming a behemoth in that space, and finally a serious competition to apple's ARM based chips.
All i want for christmas is a standalone vr headset based on an nvidia chip that actually brings some architectural and technological innovations. Developing for these kind of devices comes with so many restrictions and it needs technological advances to outgrow these. Qualcomm has not really delivered here and i hope Nvidia can.
@@PrefoX Yeah there's obviously a quality loss doing it that way, but we're talking about squeezing as much performance as possible out of very weak hardware, and this is one way to accomplish that. And even the PS5/Series X versions of Alan Wake 2 are doing it this way.
A lot of games run a primary and secondary upscale - the primary one (usually temporal) is ran after the geometry and lighting but before the post-process effects (with the exception of DoF), and the secondary one after the post-process effects, usually before rendering the UI.
I wouldn't be surprised if DLSS is optimized further to have a smaller millisecond cost, there may even be a Switch specific one that may be closer to TSR/FSR2 in upsampling quality but using AI to make it much cheaper.
It's absolutely bonkers how good games look on _handhelds_ now!
I'm curious to see what Nintendo and Nvidia can pull out of it. The first one punched well above its weight as Rich said.
What if they called it the Switch Advance to honor the last in a line of legendary Nintendo handhelds? Nintendo filed a patent that could be their future console, sucks it wasn’t on here. Would’ve been nice to have the DF experts give us their insights, we need it because the patents depict something that’s pretty bonkers. It’s like a mix between the DS and Switch.
I'm sure they will figure out a way to squeeze 8K performance out of it :p
Or what if Nintendo called the successor Nintendo Switch 3D.
Definitely didn't punch above it's weight since it struggles to run most anything that looks even remotely current
@@Adamtendo_player_1 The 3D would suggest it has stereoscopic 3D like the 3DS and I don’t see Nintendo bringing back the feature.
Its pretty much a safe bet that this will be the SoC, it has been for a while. The Xavier is way too old at this point and Thor is too far off. The Switch 2 will be comparable to a base PS4 in raw power, but with more and faster RAM, much faster load times and DLSS, which will all augment its visuals and performance closer to that of a PS4 Pro, which is everything Nintendo needs for the next 10 years. Good days are coming.
That would not be the case at all. It would put it closer to xbox one series s.
@@ivanramos1809
Ratio
@@ivanramos1809Xbox One S or Xbox Series S? Those are very different capabilities so I had to ask.
@@thelegend-e7919 Series s of course. The S is just a regular xbox one without a disk drive.
No. From a dock standpoint, it'll be closer to a Xbox Series S, bur from a unlock standpoint, it''ll be an equivalent to the PS4 Pro.
This is fascinating. Seeing what current gen is capable of, this new system for Nintendo will definitely have some surprises in store.
Since it's now known to be a custom version of this chip, it'd be safe to either add or subtract 25% to these total numbers. Plus I'm sure they've got some crazy DLSS/Ray tracing chip upgrade in there to make it all work
It's incredible that DLSS balanced looks very solid at 900p
900m internal our output? And what intertnsk to ourpur resolution?
Eh... You it's more you don't notice how much better 4K looks till after you've looked at them back to back. Also remember that TH-cam itself heavily processes the image you see and depending on your device your display may further process it.
@@Skylancer727 I play 4k with DLSS all the time. The difference is near imperceptible.
DLSS and XeSS have gotten very good. Even at 1080p Performance mode (540p internal resolution), the image quality looks pretty darn good. Not the same as native 1080p, but not far off.
Given what they squeezed out of the X1 with Metroid Prime Remastered and other such games, I'm so curious to see what might be possible from Nintendo devs on hardware that _isn't_ almost a decade old.
The next 3D mario will look absolutely gorgeous calling it now
When switch came out, it wasn't decade-old hardware.
Ampere will be decade old hardware in 6 years... Same stuff.
METROI PRIME remastered is just a GameCube game with better textures..... There's nothing demanding about it
It’s just a GameCube game lol
@@jesusbarrera6916 ... and much better lighting, and other major effects upgrades
I really hope they also take advantage of variable refresh rate display (at least on battery and when possible also docked). It makes a huge difference. I'd also love to see a bit higher fps target than 30. 60fps is perhaps not possible, but 40 could be.
As nice as that would be, no way the higher ups at Nintendo would give the green light to acknowledge that 120Hz displays even exist in 2024. This is the same company that doesn't have HDR on Switch because of the pennies extra to go from HDMI 1.4 to HDMI 2.0 on their dock (yes, the Switch Tegra supports it). It honestly wouldn't surprise me if HDR wasn't on the Switch 2 when it will obviously have the chip even more capable to do so
@@PantsaBear hilarious, I'm expecting a 720p display for the switch 2 as well, which is still fine at 7 inches, the thing I'm also expecting is for said display to be TFT despite the panel that's already used in the switch OLED, Nintendo is just different
Doubtful, especially if it still docks to a TV. Most TVs in the world don't support VRR, therefore it's extra cost for no reason to Nintendo. Nintendo are penny pinchers, don't forget that. If it's not a flashy selling point that wows people, it's not worth it to them.
@@Skylancer727it could still be useful for the integrated screen, there would be no need for vsync when in portable mode
The Switch 2 must have at least 1080p for the display in handheld mode and Nintendo will most definitely address the memory bandwidth issues with the current Switch hardware.
Man, Nintendo games are going to look so nice on their next system, I can't wait.
Nintendo first parties will look nice due to their art direction. But a weak Switch 2 will still hinder rather than help.
@@sh-creative Mario wonder graphically looks worse than games on android, it only has a beautiful artstyle.
@@saricubra2867this doesnt make any sense imma be honest
@@saricubra2867 what mobiles games are you playing bro?
@@Coplanersirtax9 Asphalt and Genshin Impact. Both run poorly on the Switch including resolutions below 1080p. Nintendo Switch bias is strong.
If they do get DLSS onto the 2nd Switch, it's going to be very interesting.
What's dlss?
@@Ben-io2vo DLSS is a similar upscaling technology from Nvidia like FSR. It is the most advanced one to be honest, and that is coming from someone who don't like Nvidia (anymore). But unlike the upscaling technology from AMD and Intel, the DLSS is only usable by Nvidia cards.
@@thingsiplay why don't you like Nvidia anymore
@@Ben-io2vo I'm going to massively simplify here, but pretty much it lets you run the game at a lower internal resolution then upscales it to output a high resolution image. It does this job extremely well and isn't noticable in most cases, so it's basically free performance if a GPU supports it.
@@Ben-io2vobecause overpriced GPUs
Great content as always, thanks for the hard work!
One thing I was wondering and would have been nice to see is a rough "generational upgrade comparison" between current Switch games running on the Switch vs their RTX2050 counterpart.
Also, I believe most media outlets were qualifying the 2050 as an unspoken 3040 at the time of release, not sure what the story behind it is but your analysis seemed to confirm it was indeed a lesser 3050.
Cheers!
Anothe caveat to keep in mind is that Nvidia is supposedly developing a special version of DLSS 2 for the Switch 2.
Great analysis rich! I'm personally most excited about 1st party, and indie titles on the new hardware, and I'll delegate future "impossible ports" as testament to ongoing advancement in optimization and support for our hybrid/mobile future. In other words, I'm not expecting graphical revelations, but I do excpect experiences that challenge the established narrative both visually and interactively. That's all I can hope for a baseline.
Rich! You star! An awesome video, I really love and appreciate your you (and the teams) experience, honesty, pragmatism and love for the medium. Major kudos sir.
I'm kind of in awe right now. If this is how well games are running on what could be similar to Nintendo's next system, and that is without the console optimization that usually goes into Switch games, then I think this next generation for Nintendo is going to be incredible. Can you even imagine this level of mobile horsepower behind Nintendo's art direction? I cannot wait to see what they do next.
4K30 BOTW and TOTK with significant IQ improvements (including but not limited to pushing out LOD) and DLSS seems like the benchmark, based in part on Rich's analysis
What was shown is way below switch 2.
@@renatoramos8834 Unlikely. This is about as accurate as they'll get. Watch the "Moore's Law is Dead" video titled "Nintendo Switch 2 Leak: Specs, Power, Pricing, and Nvidia's Console Ambitions!" At 10:59 in that video, there are quotes from 2 x Nvidia employees. I'll quote one of them in case you don't want to look it up:
"To be honest, the Switch 2 isn't really on my radar anymore - right now I am focused on finishing up validation for Blackwell. Switch 2 silicon has been done since late 2022. As far as I am aware, *that Digital Foundry article looking at the T239 processor leaked from when we were hacked is an almost entirely correct summary of what's true about the silicon in the Switch 2.*
We presented several options to Nintendo, including one that utilized Lovelace, and they *basically selected a cost-optimized version of Orin.* It has some efficiency tweaks from Lovelace, and a few other goodies added as well. Oh, and AMD bid against us HARD for the Switch 2 btw, but ended up losing the bid..."
DF basically has the Switch 2 specs down. Remember, Nintendo is trying to sell hardware at a profit, so if they price the Switch 2 at $400, the console's hardware & assembly cost a decent amount less than that. What kind of specs do you think Nintendo scraped together (in 2022 no less), that can be sold for a profit at $400, while also including things like a screen, storage, dock, joycons, etc.?
Probably not too much.
I really hope they keep the form factor/thinness of the original switch. one thing I dont like about the steamdeck/others is how bulky it is. the form factor of the original switch is just excellent
PS Vita might be better ref in terms of form factor.
i hope we get a pokemon coloseum 2 that would be crazy cool!!
This is crazy Rich, you made life really hard for that approximated chip and it still performed crazy surprisingly good at 1080p! Now add native compilation with kernel and api optimization from Nintendo, the RT cores, low TDP tweaking (and also much higher clocks, I'm certain!) and freakin DLSS updated specific for Nintendo and you'll definitely get a 4k, maybe RT experience, on the go.
I'm hopeful
With it being a custom variant it’s not impossible that it will be designed with a modern tsmc node in mind
Correct, it's exceedingly likely to be using TSMC 4N (same as Lovelace). Sounds way too expensive for Nintendo right? Well. I did an area size estimate for T239 and found that the die would be under 100mm² on this node. Combined with best public estimates of 4N wafer cost and yield, T239 would cost about $20 per working chip. Include the price of memory, packaging, and Nvidias markup to Nintendo, and you have the SoC + 12GB LPDDR5 6400 + assembled on PCB costing Nintendo no more than $75, with a more likely cost being closer to $65-70. This leaves Nintendo plenty of room to still make a profit on the console hardware given even very high estimates for the costs of the other console components
@@2intheampm512 Remember The original switch used 20nm when tsmc 10nm was being used in other mobile products (snapdragon 835).
$65 is way too low. Touchscreen, stand and SoC were estimated at $167 for the original switch. Everyone seems to expect switch 2 to cost more.
@@johnm91326 You didn't see TSMC 10FF SoCs until 2017. Remember that Tegra X1 came out in 2015, over a full year earlier. 20nm was kind of a fluke, Nvidia pretty much had to make something on those wafers (which they ordered and allocated from TSMC) since 16FF wasn't ready yet for Pascal, and Maxwell stayed on 28nm.
Considering 4N is essentially still a TSMC N5 node, I think it's pretty reasonable timeline wise for Nintendo and Nvidia to have opted for the process for a console coming out in 2024. 2020 was the first year for TSMC N5, so we have a 4 year old node being used. Even if you don't accept that, at he very least 4N will be approaching 2 years old by the time T239 is out in Switch 2s
@@2intheampm512 T239 seems to be based on T234, a 2019 product. Moving from Samsung 8 to tsmc 4 would be costly for a budget device.
Even with the x1 Nintendo could have released the 16nm shrink at launch, but didnt.
@@johnm91326 There aren't that many IP blocks to port to 4N in all honesty. Also considering the requisite increases to battery size, cooling capacity, and device size to compensate a far less power efficient 8N chip, T239 on 4N bears out cheaper overall
Now imagine this horsepower but with the typical Nintendo type of graphics and art direction. Will probably run really great.
More cell shade graphics that don't really rely on hardware. Meh, would rather see how it performs on modern masterpieces like Red Dead Redemption 2, Elden Ring, and Baldur's Gate 3.
Yeah, given how optimized some Nintendo games are I wouldn't be surprised if some first party titles, especially at the beginning of the generation, ran at 4K natively with no DLSS implementation, of course I'm talking about less ambitious titles like a Yoshi or a Kirby game, but that'd still show the capabilities of those developers.
@@JFinns I mean there's also games like Mario Oddysey and Mario Kart 8 which still looks amazing while still maintaining 60fps. And they're not cel-shaded.
@@JFinns This isn't the Gamecube era anymore man, wake up, Luigis Mansion 3 looks incredible.
@@JFinnsYou can already play that stuff on handheld PCs like the Steam Deck, no need to wait for Switch 2 for it.
Excellent clear-eyed look at what's possible.
Here's a pipe dream: incorporating variable locked framerates like the deck. I would love handheld 40fps stable without stutter. Good luck getting it to match TV standards though.
Yes, please! Sony does a good enough job communicating VRR modes to players. If Sony can, so can Nintendo.
40fps has obvious frame cadence with 60fps so should be fine on 60fps displays.
@@truthwillout2371 no it doesn't? You'd get constant judder.
You're thinking of 120hz TVs where you can display 1 frame for 3 frames
@@mechanicalmonk2020 Yeah. Ideally they would have a 1080p 120hz OLED display. And then run games at 40 fps.
*Insert sound effect of Mario descending down pipe*
If the real switch 2 can do what this simulation did it will be great. Let's remember it is possible to further optimize on fixed hardware! So great stuff.
Yes. With none of these games a graphics programmer spent one second trying to optimize them for low-end laptop hardware. That was never the target for these games so they are expectedly wasteful when running on it.
I just wish it was more powerful though. By the time switch 2 releases, it will likely be considered underpowered again. And in a few years, developers will start to struggle in developing games for the switch yet again especially since developers are now trying to tap the potential of Unreal Engine 5. Nintendo games deserves better.
@@SabaelosUE5 performance wise is a trainwreck, I’d much rather have games that look PS4 level on a handheld. It’s a fucking handheld people, stop expecting 4090 performance on a tablet.
@@supbro6505 yes, ue5 games is badly optimized right now, but it could also be the standard 3-5 years from now. Then the switch will be in the exact same spot as it was before. I had hoped they would at least get a low powered 3050ti instead of a 2050 because it will just become obsolete a lot faster.
If they really want people to stop expecting more then maybe they shouldn't advertise it as a home console hybrid and specifically target the handheld market.
@@Sabaelos No, you people have sky high expectations. Technology isn’t at the point where we can expect that much performance with little heat, decent battery life, etc.
You said it yourself, it’s a hybrid. Not a pure handheld and not a full home console.
Excellent analysis given the limited hardware you can benchmark.
I’m very much looking forward to Switch 2 (or the Super Switch as I like to call it). Nintendo first party devs have done wonders with the limited hardware available, so it fills me with hope we could be in store for some truly wonderful experiences with the next gen of Nintendo hardware.
I must say that I REALLY hope the Switch 2 will also support Nvidia GSync or HDMI forum VRR. It's such an amazing quality of life function that should be taken for granted today. Especially from Nvidia hardware.
Gsync for sure
I know this is all hypothetical work based on trying to replicate the leaked specs of a processor that maybe might be used for the potential Switch 2 and all that, but the performance in the tests was jaw-dropping to consider that the Switch 2 could in theory reach that. The idea of potentially having a physical cartridge copy of Cyberpunk 2077 on a portable console is mind-warping...very excited to see how the Switch 2 story develops.
steam deck
@@tact1cal90They don’t sell that in my country, their loss
This is the type of video that inspires me while in school to not give up on tech/gaming journalism.
If they can hit PS4 Pro level graphics with current gen (PS5/XSX) loading… that’s really all we need for another amazing Nintendo generation
Since 2016 I have been enjoying the Rich Narrated DF predictions about Nvidia’s new “mobile” chips & Nintendo, always intriguing almost Asmr sleep inducing, in a good way. 😂❤
How many Gamecubes is this?
Around 128
Great video, though regarding DLSS, I wonder if what's happening is that the tensor cores are actually depriving the other cores of power, and that's why we see the FPS decrease? If so, Nintendo could keep them switched off in portable mode, since that's gonna be 720p anyway, and turn them on in docked, where more power is available, and resolution matters much more.
Yeah, I can imagine the console essentially targeting between 720p and 1080p native performance, and then using DLSS to do the rest. Turning the cores off in handheld would be a good power-saving measure.
It's being bottlenecked by a severe lack of vram capacity.
@@Nobody-sp7ugThe 4gb he used is ridiculous tho seeing as how all the leaks say it'll be either 12gb or 16gb of ram
@joed5150 he didn't really have much of a choice though.
That is the only ampere in existance where he could actually make a basically 1:1 match with simulating the t239, raster compute, rt compute, and tensor compute were all exact matches for the t239 @ 1ghz.
No other ampere could actually get clocked low enough to reach that performance level with the number of sm's they had.
Even bottlenecked to heck, this was an incredibly promising showing.
@@joed5150 for games, the switch 2 should have 10.5gb of ram available while the OS gets 1.5.
My god! A masterclass in content creation
Always look forward to a tech deep dive from rich. Nobody does the details better! Notionally...
I’m looking forward to the next switch, it could be in a strange position in that it probably will be significantly less powerful than xbsx and ps5 yet it could outperform them in ray tracing due to dedicated RT hardware
All I want is the ability to play Nintendo's first party exclusives at 60 fps.
That exactly what I do on my 8 years old computer that cost $50...
Exactly this! 60fps is the real make-or-break issue.
I wouldn't consider myself a graphics snob by any stretch. Switch graphics are perfectly fine, as long as they're not noticeably compromised.
Sure, it's _nice_ to have good graphics, but the games really just need to run well, with 60fps and fast loading!
I cant wait to see what Nintendo is capable of with the new hardware. Especially whatever the new 3d mario is gonna be.
I wonder if the decompression in the SoC will also be used for “catridges” so they more or less just have flash memory on them then the SoC makes sure the files on it gets delivered quickly enough, where a typical PC NVMe SSD has a controller alongside the flash memory to deliver those high speeds. With it being flash memory it might be possible to more easily scale the storage size to the needs of the game (usually as time goes on the more storage space can be delivered on less size so it can scale into the future as well).
Or maybe there will be no new card format, big games being digital only or will need to be copied to internal flash first.
@@lzap_CZ the Japanese market for physical is big so I don't think it will go away there anytime soon. But if there won't be a way for physical to fit everything then the only option is to install it on the device then just have the physical as a confirmation you own it (and possible way to install the game without internet connection or at least install most of the game).
Really good video guys. I cannot WAIT for the new hardware.
A very exciting piece of Hardware. A few notes - AV1 decoding seems tailor made to enable cloud streaming. AV1 should allow to either reduce bandwidth required or improve quality. But the fact that they really went for an A78 octa core is also not what I expected. Right now we know that a large majority of games can't properly use 8 cores and are still single thread limited. On a chip that needs to be cost and power efficient 8 going for 8 mid-sized A78 cores seem a bit optimistic and I doubt that devs will be able to properly utilize them, especially in the beginning of the hardware.
AV1 hardware decoding was already supported by ampere though
When you look at the current Switch CPU utilization on recent intensive games with homebrew, even TOTK, the Xenoblade games and the likes, you'll see that the CPU is getting hammered pretty hard actually. Maybe it's a consequence of the CPU being so low clocked the single core performance isn't even a bottleneck, but IMO 8 cores will be just fine. Don't forget they allocated 1 core to specifically handle system and background tasks, with a more modern UI, they may as well allocate 2 of them this time. We'd end up with a 6 cores CPU in actual gameplay which is perfectly fine. IPC and single core performance is indeed crucial to games but modern engines have become better when it comes to multithreading at least some parts of it.
... including Unreal Engine which in 2023 A.D. still doesn't support proper mulithreading.
I am thinking that if they were showing a custom demo of the Unreal 5 Matrix demo, that Epic will be working to roll out improvements to UE5's core utilization/multi-threading so that more developers looking to develop for Switch 2 will choose Unreal Engine 5.x
Wasn't A53 inside Tegra X1 disabled because deflect ??
Nvdia Tegra t239 performance will be lower than Low end Exynos 1330 because less efficient fab (Samsung 8nm) and lower clocked speed and because it doesn't have efficient core like Mediatek Dimensity 9300 and it will throttled a lot after 30 minutes game play.
Will be getting it for the Nintendo exclusives only. And I'm confident they will look beautiful
There will be plenty of Non Nintendo exclusives worth checking out.
The DLSS upscaling around RIchard's hair this video is impressive
Would have been interesting to see the power that the 2050 was pulling during the benchmarks to really see what we could expect
6:56 it does have some extra power efficiency features that the 2050 lacks tho... so it might not be a fair comparison.
@@rafario448its Arm also so the raw numbers doesnt do it justice either
Wow, super promising stuff! I can't wait for Switch 2
Maybe BOTW will run at 1080p/60fps on the new hardware. They might even have anti aliasing and cube maps!
Wow!
I'm Tegra, I'm Bunny and we like the BOOM
A78 cores are well above Jaguar cores which were under powered even in 2013.
Haters gonna hate
As long as we can play 1080p 60fps consistently with High settings in a 7 - 8 inch screen. I'm satisfied with it.
I guarantee you nvidia has made a port of t234/t239 to samsung 5nm at some point for R&D purposes, they could easily tweak that same design and offer it to nintendo
I know, caveats up to your eyeballs, but man that looks so much better than I'd expected. And I quite liked my switch already, Doom is such an achievement I can't wait to see what the switch 2 version of Elden Ring or Baldur's Gate 3 or even Minecraft RT looks like on a handheld screen
Giving devs direct access to the “metal”, goes a long way in helping to optimize games for the upcoming switch. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see series S levels of quality coming out of the next switch. -- that may be a boon for the series S in terms of dev support and dev priority if the next switch sells very well.
I don't see the Switch 2 getting anywhere near Series S levels of performance. The Switch 2 will like be $400 and a handheld. It's basically impossible to get Series S levels of graphics quality out of that reality at this time.
@@justinmadison513 no DLSS on the S though, especially a factor if this Switch does indeed contain that machine learning processor
@@gameboy8877 The Switch won't have the latest iteration of DLSS though since it will most likely be Ampere-based.
And given that DLSS does still have a performance cost, it's hard to say that it's gonna be able to make up the difference. It's just unreasonable to think a $400 handheld is going to be able to quite get to Series S levels of performance.
It will be very interesting to see how they utilize the ml accelerator. Similarly on pcs, all the new chips are going to have ai accelerators. Could those be used for diss and similar gaming ai models, offloading the gpu?
Well, it can't offload from the gpu, because the gpu is where the ml accelerators (tensor cores) physically are.
It can offload from the cuda cores to the tensor cores, which is exactly what dlss does.
I appreciate the video a lot but it has to be said that I dont think it paints the full picture. Keep in mind the Switch 2 will use ASTC texture compression (unavailable natively on desktop, except for some older Intel iGPUs), maybe even gDeflate, shaders are bundled in, therefore less processing required, way more fine tuned custom software solutions compared to the general purpose PC software etc. But even in this kind of "worst case" scenario I think its pretty darn good for a handheld, not to mention the directly developed / optimized titles. Nintendo, Retro Studios and Monolith Soft are true wizards. Awesome Video!
Did you check the VRAM cost for DLSS? The assets could be of higher quality as the target resolution rises, even if the input resolution stays the same. This can contribute to the giant overhead in your results, and is definitely more stressful for your 4GB VRAM, comparing to consoles where more RAM is available (even if shared with the CPU, PS4 pro can load assets for 4K targets into 8GB GDDR5)
A good comparison to 8C Orin would be something like the Ryzen 2700 if downclocked 20% or so.
The performance is not that different and the cores are also in a dual 4C cluster with not very fast caches.
Though it is usual for Nvidia to provide some of the faster memory subsystems in ARM chips.
Considering the 3700 is about PS5 territory getting that high on a handheld is dumbfounding!
@@tristanweide The PS5 is a 2700 with half the FPU. The Switch 2 will be influenced by the clockspeeds they manage on a portable device but I think the CPU perf will be surprising to many.
I love Rich videos.
Appreciate the details, explanation, and dedication to journalism.
Why has he not been knighted yet?
You can't knight a king
@@MrBurtbackerack Very true hahah
Richard is way above being a knight. Have you seen some of the scum they've knighted, it's more of a negative than a positive to most people lol
@@MrBurtbackerack best comment I have read this year. I did not see it coming
They accurately predicted the Series S for "reasons". I'll take this analysis as gospel.
We're having both "Can it run Cyberpunk" and "Can it run Alan Wake 2" and the most recent versions of the "Can it run Crisis" meme
Screw the Switch - can we finally get a new Shield TV, keeping TrueHD audio support!?!?
I am also interested to see how this new switch shakes out
From the Pyramids to the Switch 2 oh man what a time to be alive 🙏🏽
interesting video, can't wait to see what Switch 2 is actually capable of in comparison to this video for better or worse!!!!
Nintendo games will be capable of much better because they would fine tune the game specifically for the hardware😊
Great video! Thanks the informative analysis Rich.
T239 being the next-gen Switch SoC has been rumored since 2021. I still believe it's true.
Nintendo is taking their sweet time with Nvidia I believe.
It was supposed to be used in the OLED, it will be too weak for a Switch 2
@@boscotheman82it depends if they use a smaller die size like the 4n it's supposed to the 8th nanometer then you're going to see a very nice jump in performance
considering how well Nintendo know how to fully exploit their own hardware it wouldn't surprise me seeing a Ray Tracing Mario game running at perfect 60 FPS while perfectly looking like somthing that could've come from the PS5
Wonder what power draw was being used with the downclock, and how this compare to the Deck and Ally for performance
I wonder what power draw Rich uses while in content mode 🤣
The way Nintendo optimizes for their hardware, I can see them having Mario games running @4k 60fps on damn near any chip
It depends on what they are doing with it, it's one thing to do Mario at 720p, bumping that up to 4k would need a lot more horsepower, just at the same visuals settings, but gamers will be expecting much better visuals being its next gen hardware, so 4k is a bit of a pipe dream without some major upscaling.
There's also the factor that Nintendo tends to be very conservative on performance per watt to get better battery life, so clock rates could be reduced quite a bit for battery life.
Heck, Mario Kart 8 ran at 1080p 60 FPS on the Switch, on Switch 2 it could easily run at 4K 60 without using DLSS. Ofcourse, the logical thing to do would be to improve fidelity and target 1440p DLSS instead.
But indies targeting low spec graphics and some Nintendo titles (like Mario vs Donkey Kong) would simply thrive.
@@s4shrishLOOOOOL NO WAY the switch 2 can run Mario Kart 8 at 4k/60
@@s4shrish Mario odysseys was alot 60fps and looked amazing!
@@lacasadelvideojuego3880it can run Mario Kart 8 on the current Switch on 1080p 60fps. Use DLSS on that game and voila.
Excited to see what devs will do. Death Stranding literally ran on hardware from 2013 and to see what that game was able to do is super impressive. Tight optimization and good design is what devs gotta focus on moving forward to make tighter games.
Most likely what they'll do is use DLSS to 1440p, use traditional upscaling from that to 4K, and call that 4K output.
Dr. Richenstein has done it again with another console-mimicking monster. Well done, sir!
Whatever they decide to do with the next console, I’m sure they’ll continue to release incredible first party titles and the indie scene will fill out the rest.
I have my XSX for AAA third party gaming.
If they included frame gen and DLSS, it could be incredible and help make up for Nintendo's hardware weakness and longevity
Nvidia don't do anything to increase longevity. The Tegra X1 in the switch can't even run the UI without lagging right out to a crawl.
@@leanlifter1It was Nintendo's choice to use an underclocked version of an old chip.
@@leanlifter1that’s because dlss wasn’t as common back in the day
If you told anyone 25 years ago that we'd have graphics like this on mobile, they'd lose their mind. Honestly, the OG Switch is still impressive to me. These graphics on a Switch 2 are insane.
A medium setting cyberpunk graphic level Pokemon game would be awesome,
GameFreak is incompetent.
I'm personally fine with DLSS preformance mode at 1080p. Expecially with the more recent DLSS modes it gets pretty damn close to looking like native 1080p. Yeah it's a bit soft and there may be some artifacts here and there, but it looks pretty good for the most part
If Nintendo can do a device who run title like 1080p 60fps and 1440p 30fps im fine with this.
i don't know if i'll buy a switch 2 for anything but exclusives, after getting the steam deck, I don't see any point in buying games twice anymore
The only journalist that can give credible, plausible, BESPOKE coverage on hardware rumors.
It sounds like it’ll be the traditional Nintendo console. Third party games will be dated upon release and look worse and run worse than every other console but Nintendo first party games will look great. I’m always happy for a new Nintendo system but I wish they could have pushed this even further.
If Nvidia and Nintendo want to give 4k at 30 docked mode they can provide custom version of dlss along with custom hardware for dlss and rt.
This is a very useful video for expectation management. I wonder if they'll actually be able to pull off 4k on the actual hardware (not that I'll likely play it docked anyway :P )
So, even if the Switch 2 ever comes out it will be last gen still. Nice.
Richard’s videos are the best.
And considering the very high quality from the rest of the DF crew; that’s a big statement
Well hes the boss whos runs the show so to be expected. He is my fav.
Everyone except john*
Regarding DLSS not being a free lunch and the lower framerates on Death Stranding, isn't that because, even if all of the modes presented are based on 720p native, the games are using higher resolution/quality buffers depending on the output resolution after DLSS?
I reckon they should focus on memory bandwidth also storage speed as we have seen overclocked ram bandwidth on modded switch’s improves performance. Nintendo and NVIDA should look at AMD’s Infinity Cache set up to increase bandwidth without increasing cost or power draw.
Expectation is 100GB/s of memory bandwidth. Should be sufficient to keep the GPU and cores fed in handheld mode. In docked mode bandwidth may begin to become more of a bottleneck to performance, I'm hoping they've put 4MB of L2$ on the GPU to mitigate this somewhat
@@2intheampm512 Nintendo should take a page from the PS5 with its ssd and custom processors to remove bottlenecks. Also implement cache into memory like AMD’s Infinity Cache to increase bandwidth at a cheaper cost.
@@2intheampm512It's going to be a set top streaming box Nintendo switch edition 150% fakeframes gen lol.
@@mitchjames9350 bro, infinity cache is not only on AMD systems. Inform your self
@@OmnianMIUinfinity cache is AMD technology, where also than is infinity cache?
i really hope this soc or its variant, makes its way to the new Nvidia ShieldTV since the current X1/X1+ chip used in all ShieldTV editions(2015-2019) is already 9 years old and could use an upgrade(hopefully one with at least 8gb of ram). I have 4 different shields in my house and they are showing their age. Although can still easily play any media format and android games - even my 2019 Shield Pro(best and newest Shield that exists) is suffering from only having 3gb of ram
Most of this tech stuff goes over my head, but if Nintendo is actually going for a relatively modern thing for their console that's a win IMO.
Rich, did you look at Tensor Core Utilization per frametime with nsight? What I noticed with DLSS is actual utilization of TCs in ms of a frame is often very low. There seems to be computation outside of the TCs per frame which might utilize the Vector FPUs. I suspect not every piece if DLSS is ML. Potentially limited to Pixel Clamping and when it fails (fe at disocclusion) to „hallucinate“ a conclusive datapoint. Aside from that a very signicant portion of thr cost for DLSS is computation for Full Screen Effects. Those are rendered AFTER DLSS at outputresolution. So no wonder the poor rtx 2050 broke down as it had to render full screen effects to a 4K outputresolution (at 4k dlss ultra performance). There could be potential for the developer to reduce quality / resolution for full screen effects. Just some food for thought ;)
I cam highly recommend using nsight to look into whats going on in a frame.
If we get anything close to a PS4 performance in handheld with DLSS support in a similar Form-factor of the current Switch, I would be extremely happy or anything along Decks performance but lighter and quieter
Far too weak.
I will be asking for Switch 2 pro all Gen
Radeon 780M, the iGPU present in most handhelds (ROG Ally, Legion Go, Win GPD4, etc) already handily beats PS4 performance and is quite close to PS4 Pro GPU, at least in theory. The limiting factor is power consumption -- the GPU in the Steam Deck frequently beats out the Ally at lower power consumption, due to extensive modifications made to make it more efficient than AMD's "ready-made" 780M. Keep in mind, though, that even max-powered 780M is far from being enough for most new AA+ titles.
The major question is, can Nvidia make something that performs similarly but consumes less power? I doubt it, personally. Nvidia's GPUs are more efficient than AMD's in the desktop space, but they have very little experience with comparable size constraints.
It needs to be _at least_ as powerful as the Steam Deck. Otherwise, it's too weak.
We should remember that a Steam Deck 2 is likely around 2025, and there's already a much more powerful portable PC gaming machine on the market.
I would actually consider a Switch 2 with Steam Deck 1 level of performance quite poor if I'm honest.
As for PS4 level visuals with upscaling, that seems doable and in any event, it's going to be a massive upgrade over the Switch 1, which was old even on release but I don't expect it to compete with PC portable gaming devices that are released around that time.
If the Switch 2 can run every game at Native 720p locked 30fps in Handheld mode. That will be a HUGE W
It's looking just like the og switch. A bit slower on the cpu side and more powerful on the gpu side than current flagship phones.
Can you test out 3dmark wildlife extreme on the 2050 at the lowest clocks.
I really hope they put it on a better node like samsung 5nm or tsmc 4nm to give it atleast somewhat decent power at 15 W.
Considering that Nintendo released the OG Switch with a 20nm TSMC node when there was already wide availability of its 16nm production node, and the ridiculous price increase to produce chips on the newest litographies, I think we'll see TSMC's 6nm at the absolute best.
That and the reports saying Nvidia sold tons of Samsung-8nm-made T239s to Nintendo for the first few million Switch 2 units makes it seem like the Switch 2 will have an underwhelming performance despite the relatively new technologies being used. The reason for this is the horrible performance/watt on Samsung made chips.
@@MegaLoquendo2000those reports have 0 credibilty, its not a matter of a choice, Nintendo can't use 8nm samsung and expect it to last more than 2 horus
I'm most excited to see what Nintendo's own devs put forward on the next piece of hardware.
Xenoblade, in particular, is a series I could see taking full advantage of DLSS to just let their current assets shine
@@estwikphotoit wont come for the switch 2 if it even comes it will be for the current switch
monolithsoft needs to make a new engine tho imo. theyve been using the same since X and you can tell
@@erenyeeagah204 its not the engine they use is for the switch xcx and xc2 clearly look different especially in the particles department
This mans skill level is insane.
This is also taking into account how game console usually not always but usually are heavily optimized for there chip.
Thanks Rich, awesome content 😊👍